


Cryptology

by JaneTurenne



Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-17
Updated: 2009-11-17
Packaged: 2017-10-03 04:36:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 27,152
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14256
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JaneTurenne/pseuds/JaneTurenne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Watson makes a sacrifice to save himself and Holmes, but the consequences are more varied and far-reaching than anyone could have suspected.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

_It is a testament to the genius of the late Mr. Sherlock Holmes that the most complex of his ciphers eluded the cryptographic powers of some of the world's brightest minds for nearly a century after his death. A small, leather-bound notebook, written in code, was uncovered among the great detective's personal effects within months of his passing, and since that time the scholarly community has devoted tremendous time and effort in an attempt to decode it. Until about a decade ago, progress was impeded by the total lack of any frame of reference from which to begin such efforts. It was not until 1997 that a bored graduate student, who happened to have access to the notebook, decided that it was worth the afternoon's effort to obtain x-ray images of the book. To the student's astonishment, the scan revealed that a few sheets of writing paper were concealed between the pieces of leather that formed the book's cover. The binding was immediately ripped apart to reveal another document, written in the same cipher on six sheets of much-folded but good quality writing paper._

About these few, isolated pages more was obvious from the outset than had ever been known about the notebook. From the length and format it could only be a letter, and it was clearly written not in Holmes' hand, but that of his friend and colleague, Dr. John H. Watson. A study of other extant letters from Watson to Holmes revealed that the doctor invariably began his epistles with the salutation "My Dear Holmes," and signed his name as "J. Watson" at their conclusion. The knowledge of these facts allowed scholars--though not without a good deal more sweat and toil--finally to break Holmes' unbreakable code about two years ago.

All the effort of those decades of research proved more worthwhile than the researchers involved in the project could possibly have imagined. The letter and the notebook--which proved to be a personal journal kept sporadically by Holmes between the years 1889 and 1902, approximately--have been a veritable treasure trove of startling revelations. This is the first time that these materials will ever be presented to the public. My colleagues and I have decided that the letter, which is the earliest of the documents chronologically as well as the first decoded, ought also to be the first part of this remarkable set of writings released from the isolation of the library and the laboratory into the wider world. In time, no doubt, the journal which it accompanied will follow.

Reactions to the contents of the letter within the scholarly community have ranged from horrorstruck disbelief to positive elation, and no doubt the reaction of the larger public will be similarly varied. One thing, however, is beyond debate: this letter will change the way we see Sherlock Holmes and his Watson forever.

 

\--Jane Turenne,

Curator of the Holmes Collection, Victoria and Albert Museum, London

 

 

My Dear Holmes,

 

It occurs to me that it ought to bring me some feeling of triumph, to be in advance of you this one time in the solution of a problem. I have certainly wished, many and many a time, for the ability to anticipate your conclusions, or else simply to keep pace with the workings of that magnificent mind of yours. Never before has my own brain been equal to the task. At this moment, knowing that I have outstripped you at last, I ought perhaps to be savoring the sensation.

On the whole, however, I am finding it an experience which I could very easily have done without

No, no, it will not do to start this way. I can already hear your voice in my mind: "Beginning from the end again, eh Watson? Bad, very bad." I will give you the beginning, then, which you have not yet heard, and by the end of it all you will be miles ahead of me. It is a fate to which I am well used; I am resigned to it.

It started only a few hours ago--My God, can it really have been so little time as that?--which was, of course, the morning of this December the seventeenth, 1888. You remained at Baker Street, scratching agitatedly at your violin and no doubt soliloquizing for the umpteenth time on the idiocy of each and every representative of the government, up to and including Her Majesty, in refusing your help on the case of those poor murdered girls in Whitechapel. I, on the other hand, had braved the cold and windy streets in search of a suitable Christmas gift for the long-suffering Mrs. Hudson. Trudging my way home with my carefully wrapped lace tablecloth in my oxter, I found myself in the vicinity of the Yard, and thought I might just stop in for a chat and a respite from the weather.

As it was so near the holiday, and so bitter out-of-doors, Scotland Yard was both cheery and crowded, and I saw a dozen familiar faces as I walked the halls. All our old acquaintances--Gregson, Lestrade, Jones, and the lot--were about, and each greeted me in more-or-less friendly tones. I thought, however, that I could sense a slight stiffness in their manners. At the time I put it all down to remembrance on their parts of some of your less than kind remarks about the regular forces, and by the end of my visit, some half-an-hour later, I managed to convince myself that I had simply imagined their supposed coolness.

As I was turning to leave, I felt a tugging at my sleeve. It was Marcus Wellstone, the young constable to whom you were such a help in that little matter in Piccadilly last June. He was just the same tall, gangly youth I remembered, as innocent-looking as ever beneath his thatch of blonde hair, but he held himself rather nervously, I thought. Drawing me aside, he said, "Doctor Watson, I feel that I owe a good turn to you and Mr. Holmes."

I began to dismiss him, but before I could finish the requisite, "Not at all, my good man," he turned to me with the utmost seriousness and said "I should be very careful, sir, if I were you, the next few months at the least. You might want to warn Mr. Holmes as well."

As you might imagine, I was intrigued and not a little discomfited by this sudden disclosure. "Careful, Wellstone? Careful in what way?"

The young man squirmed, a dark flush spreading over his already pink cheeks. "You see, Doctor, it's like this. The Yard's been under a bit of pressure, lately. Seems there's those, higher-up, like, as want us to be more... harsh, in the enforcing of certain laws. And, well, Sir, there's some 'round here have been watching you and Mr. Holmes rather close. Investigating you, you might say."

My mind flashed back over the list of the laws that we, my dear friend, have bent or broken outright in our efforts on the side of justice. That list was far longer than I cared to admit. If the constable before me sought an explanation for one of these, I could hardly choose just one action to defend. I needed more information.

"Which laws, in particular?"

Both squirm and blush increased at this question. "I…I think, Sir," the young man positively stammered, "I think it's called something like 'The Act Against Offences of the Body,' or suchlike thing, Sir."

He meant, of course, the 'Offences Against the Person Act,' but even though I knew something of the provisions of that law, I could not understand how it could possibly apply to me, much less to you. Did he think I, as a physician, might have been aiding women in miscarrying? I chose my words as carefully as I could.

"I have never broken any of the laws described in that Act, Wellstone, and, so far as I know, neither has Mr. Holmes."

His face changed instantly from his former intense nervousness to the very model of relief. As it did, some barrier seemed to burst within him, and a positive storm of babble escaped.

"Oh, Dr. Watson, Sir, I knew it could not be so. They're all just jealous, s'what they are, of Mr. Holmes and how he solves things so well and so quick. I told Inspector Gregson, I did, I said, 'How could you say such a thing of two respectable gentlemen like them? So what if they're both bachelors, and have been living together for so many years? They're in their prime of life, they are, and they may both of them marry yet. It is true, Mr. Holmes isn't one to chase after the ladies, or even to speak highly of them, but that doesn't mean a thing,' I said, 'and even if the Doctor _is_ the only person Mr. Holmes'll tolerate for more than a little while, and even if Dr. Watson _does_ speak so highly of Mr. Holmes in that book he wrote about him, and even if they _do_ spend such a lot of their time together, well, they're _friends_, sirs, and what else do you expect? How could you possibly accuse them of something as unnatural as that, and after all they've done for the force, too?' I told him all that, Dr. Watson, but… but it is good to hear you say it's so, Sir, because, well, I did know that they was wrong, Sir, and just talking scandal and all, but it's best, isn't it, to hear it from a man's own lips?"

I am not sure when precisely in this avalanche of dialogue I became aware of his meaning. I do remember that the word "unnatural" seemed to catch in the air and vibrate through my body like the ringing of a gong. By the end of his rambling speech I was tight-lipped and a strange lightness had come over me, as though I no longer inhabited my own skin.

I cannot recall with what words I escaped from the constable. They were, at any rate, reassuring but few. As I pushed home to Baker Street through the gusty wind and the snow that had begun to fall, I had only one thought. I was being investigated. I was being investigated by Scotland Yard. I was being investigated, with Holmes, on a charge of…

'Unnatural,' whispered Wellstone's voice, again and again, resounding through my mind. 'Scandal…jealous…_friends_…'

I was on the stairs at Baker Street before I came back to myself. I froze when I heard the sound of your violin from the sitting room, and knew that I must pass by you to gain the safe haven of my own room. I must get to privacy, I must _think_. But how was I to keep the afternoon's revelations from you? How could I conceal my thoughts from you, my dear Holmes, who see the workings of my mind as though my skull were made of glass?

I stood there on the stair and forced myself to take long, deep, stilling breaths. I had, it was true, managed to keep one single secret safe from your all-seeing eyes, and that for some five or six years now. Surely I could preserve a second for the dozen heartbeats it would take to cross the sitting room to my own door.

I stood in our doorway, opposite Mrs. Hudson's fine looking-glass, and tried to see myself as you would see me. At first, I thought to eliminate any traces of the path which I had taken, but I knew it to be impossible to keep such physical details from your eyes. After all, the errant snowflakes on my hair and coat might tell you which way I walked relative to the wind; the paper in which my long-forgotten tablecloth was wrapped, and the types of knots in the twine, would likely as not signal the shop at which I purchased it; and I shuddered to imagine how much you might divine from the slush oozing off of my poor boots or the clatter of loose change in my pockets. No, your powers in that way were simply too intense, too supernatural. I could only hope to hide what it was I learned, rather than where it was I went. I must obliterate any clues to my emotional, rather than my physical state. Very carefully I wiped the moisture that had once been snow from my face--a man in his right senses would have ducked his head in such abysmal weather. I tucked my bright red hands into my pockets, to obscure the absentmindedness that had led me to forget to don my gloves. And then, reluctantly, I examined my own face.

It was more difficult than I can say to contort my features into something like normality. I looked then as I had not looked since the black days of my convalescence in India. Long moments passed as I wrestled with each and every feature, my face transforming slowly from that of a man ravaged to his depths, to the same John H. Watson as always.

When I judged that I was, or appeared to be, as calm as was possible, I pulled the door open and hurried inside. I meant to escape from you as quickly as I could, mindful that my painstakingly constructed façade would soon fade.

As it turned out, however, I needn't have bothered. I have never before been glad to see you in one of your dark moods but, God forgive me, I was then. It was clear from the moment that I walked in that you were not of a mind to acknowledge my presence, much less deduce the history of my afternoon. Had I not been so infernally distracted I might have guessed as much from the disjointed, melancholy, abrupt strains that you were wringing from your poor Stradivarius. I was greeted upon my entrance by the sight of you, sprawled loose-limbed and dressing-gowned in your chair by the fire, holding the violin as though it took all the effort of which you were capable just to keep it at your shoulder. On another day, I would have tarried awhile in an attempt to tease or prod or scold you out of your black humor. Today, however, I felt only a sort of bitter, cold relief, and I strode determinedly past you without uttering a word.

The closing of my bedroom door was a blessed relief. I did not even make it as far as the bed, but slumped to the floor with my back against the door and buried my head in my hands. The facts which I had been suppressing for the last quarter of an hour finally broke upon me in all their force.

We were, the both of us, ruined. It did not matter that we were innocent. The evidence as presented by young Wellstone, though entirely circumstantial, was enough. Though no one had batted an eye over our personal arrangements before, they could be made to seem utterly damning by any lawyer worth his salt, enough to condemn us in the court of public opinion if not in a court of law. But that was not my main concern.

My mind, as though rent upon a seam, tore in both directions at once. Moral guilt and practical innocence beat in upon me, released from the thread that had bound them together, the one idea that summed up my torment now.

I imagined myself in a witness box. Before me stood a faceless interrogator.

'Have you committed the crime of which you stand here accused?'

'No,' answered my dream-self, truthfully. That was not the question that I feared. I lived in dread, however, of the question that I knew was coming next.

'Did you ever _wish_ to commit that crime?'

In a real witness-box, in a real court, perhaps I would lie. At worst, I would answer the question plainly and without elaboration. In my own imagination, however, I was as eloquent as I was foolish.

'Yes. Yes, I have wished it. I have wished it almost every day for years. I have lived for seven years now in the company of Mr. Sherlock Holmes. When the world looks at Holmes, they see an infuriating, cold, vain, calculating, insulting, and almost inhuman person. As he would say himself--they see, but they do not observe. They do not observe that it is true genius that makes him infuriating. They do not observe that it is only to hide his sensitivity that he seems cold. They do not observe that his vanity is part of a constant effort at self-improvement, that his calculations save lives and reputations, or that the insults of his bad moods are balanced, and more than balanced, by the kindnesses of his good ones. And as to the charge of inhumanity--how can anyone fail to see that, uncommon though he is, that very uncommonness is a result of the most noble, generous, just, benevolent spirit with which ever a man was blessed? He is a beautiful man, in body and soul, more deserving of love than any person I have ever known. Is it any wonder, then, that I have loved him? Is it any wonder, then, that I have hoped he might some day come to love me? He is the True North of my life and I, magnetized, must follow. Imprison me for these thoughts, if you like; it is no matter. But know this: on the day that you condemn Sherlock Holmes, you condemn all that is best in the British spirit. May the penalty for it be on your own heads.'

This was the speech with which my sorry brain presented me, those the ideas which tore me between the penitent feeling that my illegal desires had condemned me, and the defiant wish that I might at least have committed the crime which would destroy me anyhow.

It has not been as difficult as I supposed to put this down on paper, knowing that you will read it. Yesterday morning I would have trembled to write such things to you, but now, after all that has happened on this mad day, I have necessity to counterbalance the cowardice--yes, the worst kind of cowardice!--that has stopped me confessing my feelings for you before. Why I chose to not do so (besides the legal risk which seems to have overcome us anyhow) must surely be obvious to you. Your own opinions on the subject of love have been expressed so often, and so emphatically, that it would be folly to hope that a romantic appeal could be favorably received. Worse, I know that you do genuinely care for and value me, if only in friendship. How could I be willing to risk such a treasure as that for so small a chance of reward? Although I have dreamed of more, I have always been contented with what has been granted to me: with the sparkle of your brilliant grey eyes when they meet mine, with your frequent expressions of brotherly affection and trust, with the sound of your laughter and the scent of your tobacco and the sight of that tall, lean form in an agitation of motion or the languor of repose. I could not survive without those little luxuries.

And yet now it must all come out. I would lose my reputation, I might well lose my freedom, and, worst but most certainly of all, I would lose you.

Somehow I must stop this calamity. I must and I would set the world back to the way it had been when I woke in the morning. If there was any way to make these horrible accusations go away, I would discover it.

Slowly, very slowly, a plan began to take root in my mind. I must have maintained my strange seat, leaning back against the door, for nearly two hours. I considered the case from every angle. I weighed the evidence. I was very careful to be sure that I was fitting the proposed solution to the problem, rather than the other way around. In short, I applied your methods, with more deliberation than I have ever done before. The more I considered it, the more everything fell into place. Every detail fitted. There was only one question left to be asked: Could I do it? Did I have the strength?

Had I only myself to fight for, I might not have found the will. But you were pinned into that dreadful corner with me, and I could not let you down. I lifted my chin, squared my shoulders, and made my choice. I vowed within myself that nothing now should shake my resolve. It was as final as though set in stone.

The only question left was how, and how much, to tell you. As I sat and considered those questions, fate and Scotland Yard intervened once more

The knock at the sitting-room door, though muffled by intervening walls, was abrupt enough to cause me to start. I heard your voice, slurred with boredom, as you languidly bid our visitor enter. And then I stiffened where I sat as I heard Athelney Jones' greeting. Had he come to arrest us? Was I already too late?

My ear was pressed against the door and, since I could hear all that went on, the fear and indecision of the moment were sufficient to dissuade me from interference. I realize now that my inaction was an error, for I am sure that, had I been there, I might have lessened the shock to you which I was later forced to give. But I am getting ahead of myself again.

After the usual pleasantries had been exchanged--though, given your black mood and Jones' pompous smugness (which tonight was even worse than usual), pleasantry is hardly the proper term--I heard Jones begin to explain his presence.

"Well, Mr. Holmes, I'm sure you're wondering what's brought me here tonight."

"I am positively breathless with anticipation, Inspector," you replied, in that scathing tone.

"Yes, well, the situation stands as follows. We have for some time been investigating a member of Parliament. We have very good reason to believe that this man, who has otherwise been considered the model of respectability, engages regularly in depravity of the most abhorrent kind…"

I sat up very straight.

"…in short, Mr. Holmes, that he keeps as a lover an actor from the Haymarket Theatre." Here Jones paused, as though for anticipating a response, and, receiving none, added, "A _male_ actor."

"Yes, Jones, the O-R suffix implied as much." Your voice dripped acid. "Though Dr. Watson often informs me that my use of cocaine will addle my wits, I believe that I am not yet so entirely deprived of mental force as to require elucidation on so small a point as that."

I winced. Jones' choice of subject could not be a coincidence; I was sure that his presence was a test of your behavior. So far, you had expressed no shock at the idea of a Parliamentarian committing sodomy, had insulted Jones for the umpteenth time, and had even managed to drag my name into the discussion within its first few sentences. I felt, to put it mildly, that the conversation was not going well.

Jones gave a little "harrumph" before continuing. "Obviously, Mr. Holmes, we are hoping to build a sufficient case against this gentleman, but our attempts to do so must be conducted in an extraordinarily discreet manner, on the off-chance that our information up to now has been mistaken. Since you have such a talent for discovering what others cannot," the sneer in Jones' voice belied the compliment, "we thought you might assist us in the gathering of our evidence."

There was a long silence. Then came your words, deliberate and dangerously calm, "Let me see if I understand you, Inspector. You think that you may have a case to make. You are not sure whether any crime is being committed at all. If it is, there will likely be no official proceedings. A member of Parliament is far too important a person to be caught out in such a way; at worst he might be forced to resign his seat, but he also would, beyond a doubt, manage to worm his way out of a public trial. Whether or not a crime is being committed, you dislike the risk of investigating so important a personage. You will need a scapegoat, someone whose investigations you can disavow. Furthermore, the task of collecting the evidence for this case is entirely menial; any one of the fifty private detectives in this city is used to such work, and most of them would be no loss to the profession if it proved necessary to throw your locum to the dogs to save your own skin."

"I, on the other hand, am not so dispensable. I am unique. As a result of my work and my methods, my own reputation has been quietly and subtly enhanced, but yours, Inspector Jones, has skyrocketed, as has that of the Yard. In return, I have asked only that you continue to bring me your most difficult and interesting problems, so that I may solve them and you may have the credit."

Only a few times before have I heard in your voice the fierce undercurrent of anger that had begun to seep into your words.

"But now, now you bring me a case neither admirable nor unique, in hopes that I will not only investigate it, but take the blame for it! And a case, moreover, of victimless crime, an offense that hurts no one and nothing save perhaps the immortal souls of the participants. As you well know, Inspector, the soul is not my purview. Where there is murder, conspiracy, robbery, intrigue, violence--where, in short, real harm to innocent prey is being done or contemplated--there am I more than willing to risk my person, my name, and my life for the sake of justice. But this case that you have brought to me today is not worth even the time and energy it took for me to hear and refuse it."

Your unusually emotional and hasty words were carrying us ever nearer to disaster, but I could not help but feel a certain pride as I listened to this speech. The absolute truth of every word, your masterly manner, the extraordinary contrast between your behavior and Jones'… well, to tell the truth, it was quite stirring. However, as much as I would have enjoyed listening to you take Jones down another peg or two, I could not allow you to push the inspector so far that he would arrest us both on the spot. That would have quite upset my plans.

Jones' appearance, and the scene I'd just overheard, would make it necessary for me to adjust my timetable somewhat, but I had already worked out my key tactics and I knew my cue when I heard it. Realizing that I had no more time to prepare myself, and that my performance must be absolutely flawless, I sprang to my feet and wrenched open the door.

For half a moment I took in the scene: the corpulent form of Athelney Jones, encased as always in an acre of grey tweed, on his feet before the basket-chair, flushed and puffed out with indignation; you sitting up in your armchair, ramrod-straight with flashing eyes. The inspector's mouth was open, preparing a retort, and a note of triumph lurked beneath the anger imprinted on his features. My entrance was perfectly timed.

"Oh, hello Jones," I said, in a suitably cheerful tone. The _rôle_ that I had chosen for this little exercise in theatrics was the same slightly exaggerated self-portrait that I have adopted for myself in my published writings: the honest, good-natured, and somewhat idiotic English doctor, instantly recognizable, thoroughly likeable and eminently forgettable. "I thought I heard your voice."

The inspector began to greet me, but you cut him off with a scowl and a sibilant, "_Jones_ was just leaving us, Watson."

I glanced between the two of you as though becoming aware of the tension in the room, and gave a little shrug as I turned back to Jones.

"Oh. Well, I'm glad I caught you before you left, Inspector. I wouldn't bother mentioning it, of course, but as you know the lady in question, and were so instrumental in that little adventure that occasioned our meeting, well… oh, I am running on, aren't I? It's just that, I have some happy news that I thought you might like to hear."

As I spoke I strode over to the fireplace, ostensibly to retrieve my pipe from the rack on the mantelpiece. In reality, I was positioning myself between you and Jones. I did not wish him to be able to see your face when I made my announcement. The mirror would ensure that I could observe you even though he could not. I hoped and prayed that you would, for once, follow my lead, but I did expect my "news" to cause you some degree of surprise. It was this which I hoped to keep from Jones' notice.

"And what news would that be, Dr. Watson?" Jones asked, gruffly but politely.

I thrust out my hand to him with a broad grin. "Congratulate me, Inspector. I'm to be married."

Between you and Jones, I am not sure whose face betrayed more. Surely his changed most dramatically--his eyes waxed large as saucers and bugged out obscenely, his cheeks grew even redder, and his mouth fairly gaped. Your transformation was more subtle, but to me, knowing you as I do, it spoke volumes. The only movement I saw in the glass above the fireplace was a stiffening of your frame that culminated in a slight, involuntary jerk. As I watched, your face blanched far, far beyond your customary pallor, until you were more excessively white I have ever seen you before. For the merest moment, our eyes connected in the mirror. I tried desperately to convey the necessity of my actions, to implore your trust and patience, to beg forgiveness for the shock. What I saw in your eyes, however, was not what I expected to see. It was not surprise. It was hurt. I might even have called it despair.

My first thought, I hope you will believe, was a desire to ease that hurt. But just after that I confess to feeling an unconscionable rush of hope, for might not such a look be a sign that you are not as indifferent as I have always supposed?

With a tremendous effort, I turned my attention back to Jones. Fortunately, he was so bewildered that he had not noticed my distraction. For a moment he gasped and spluttered, then managed to choke out the single word, "Married?"

I forced myself to laugh and smile, seizing the hand that had not found mine and shaking it by force. "Yes, Jones, I am joining the ranks of you noble husbands."

Jones was still wide-eyed and stammering. "Married! To… to whom, sir?"

"To Miss Mary Morstan. Of course you will remember her from the little business of the Agra treasure?"

At this, Jones lost his bemused look and became quite animated. "Why, certainly, Doctor. What a fanciful affair that was! Pearls, and natives, and revenge, and blow-darts, and treasures sunk into the Thames… Just the sort of thing to stir the romance in a fellow, I daresay!"

From behind me I heard you rise from your chair. Your face was still unbelievably pale.

"Well, gentlemen, with such quaint reminiscences and such a charming lady to talk over I trust you will manage to keep yourselves occupied. I could hardly have much to say on what does or does not "stir the romance in a fellow" in any case. You will excuse me, then; seeing as the weather seems to be clearing, I have one or two little things I must attend to." Those words, spoken coldly and hurriedly in the direction of the coat-rack, were hardly out of your mouth before you had slipped from the room. I heard the tap of your feet as you descended the stairs, and the slam of the door as you left 221B.

For some few minutes more I had to put up with Jones' presence. I longed, as I had earlier, to be alone with my thoughts, but I kept up a good pretense. I was everything a successful lover ought to be--proud, happy, a bit shy--and I may say without overrating my abilities that Jones believed every bit of it. By the time he left Baker Street, I was sure beyond any doubt that the investigation into our personal lives would be dropped. Jones would spread the word that "it was all a misunderstanding, and isn't it nice for the Doctor, getting free of Holmes and netting himself such a pretty little bride in the bargain? I always thought he was too good a chap to be caught up with such a devil," &amp;c. &amp;c. My plan had gone off brilliantly so far. I had rescued us both from the danger that had threatened our very freedom.

Not without cost, however. I had not finished yet. I had now to do the thing which I had promised, to hold up my end of the deal I had made with the Devil. I would have to propose to Miss Morstan.

You may have wondered, Holmes, why I chose Mary Morstan of all the young women in London. I have maiden acquaintances more beautiful, richer, more accomplished, cleverer than she. Mary is a good girl, and will make a good wife, but I know other women, even ones who would accept me, of whom as much could be said. Mary Morstan, however, has something that they lack.

Mary Morstan is dying.

She does not know it yet. There are, so far, only small, subtle signs, but I can tell. Yours are not the only pair of eyes in London trained to notice what others do not. There is no way that any doctor, even one far more skilled than myself, can help her. Within five years, no matter what anyone does, Mary Morstan will be dead.

Put down here on paper, it seems truly monstrous. To marry a woman whose main attraction is that she will not live very long… when it is stated so, it does seem an act of immeasurable vileness. While I was forming my plans this afternoon I wrestled for many minutes with the ethics of the thing, for I would not happily compromise my honor even to save us both from gaol. But then I considered it in a different light. I can and will see to it that Mary's last years are more happy than they would have been had we never met. I have vowed to myself that I shall always be a good husband to her. I shall be kind. I shall be loving. I shall be loyal. And, as a doctor, I will be able to do something to ease her suffering at the end. Most of all, she will not be alone as her life fades away. It will be a mutually beneficial relationship.

And at the end of it, in some few years from now… I will be free. I will be free to return to you, to our rooms in Baker Street, and to our bachelor existence. And no one will ever look twice at us again, for I will be the poor young widower, and you the heartless reasoning machine.

Just before I sat down to write this letter, I sent Miss Morstan a telegram, requesting the honor of calling on her at eight o'clock tonight. I have been in communication with her these last few months while I have been writing up her case, and our relations have been quite friendly (in truth, I have had some little trouble deflecting her increasingly blatant flirtations). Perhaps it is very arrogant of me, but I do not doubt my ability to win her hand. I do not doubt it for the same reason I did not doubt that I could convince Jones--because I must not fail. Besides, I have a way with women. By ten o'clock, Miss Morstan will be my fiancée.

I had hoped that I might speak to you before I see her, but the hour grows late and you have not yet returned. It would have been nice to have a few moments alone with you beforehand, but it seems that it was not meant to be.

It is possible that I have already lost you. Perhaps you are disgusted with me and my talk of love. Perhaps you think me perverted, wrong, foul, unnatural. But I know that your ideas of justice and of right are somewhat more flexible than the law's, and, remembering what you said to Jones of victimless crime, I think I need not fear on that account. On the other hand, I still have no reason to expect that my passion will ever be returned. I love you with everything I am, Sherlock Holmes, and I cannot go off to my fate without telling you so, but all I ask of you is that the friendship that you feel for me should endure. I am sorry to leave you. I will, I promise, return, if ever you should ask.

And if… I hardly dare express it…if that emotion that I saw in your eyes was more than bewilderment, more than confusion, more than betrayal that I should tell Jones of my imaginary betrothal before you…

I am leaving now, and when I come back I will belong to Mary Morstan. Until the day of her death, my first obligation will be to her. But at the moment that my marriage ends, I will be yours, as I have been until now. And if that emotion in your eyes was truly something like love, then perhaps…

Perhaps you will be glad to know it.

 

I am, my dearest friend,

 

Most sincerely yours,

 

J. Watson


	2. Chapter 2

_When we sent Dr. Watson's decoded epistle to Mr. Holmes out into the world last month, my colleagues and I anticipated that the release of the accompanying journal would be a leisurely affair, strung out in small packets at perhaps a quarterly rate. The response of the public to that piece of correspondence has, however, been so clamorous, so enthusiastic, and of a scope so far beyond our expectations that we are now determined to accelerate our timetable as far as is possible. _

Manifold logistical issues make it unfortunately impossible for the journal to be presented in its entirety with any kind of speed. Reflecting, however, that some of the greatest accounts of the master detective's works were first published in serial, we have not scrupled to break the journal into pieces, the more swiftly to present it for public consumption. Fortunately, the division has been aided by the form in which it was written and, while Mr. Holmes might well accuse us of a touch of theatricality in our choices of starting and ending points, we should like to point out that he himself was often guilty of unnecessary dramatization, and that his generations of admirers have never yet seemed to regret it.

Further ado can only be irksome. It is, therefore, my great pleasure to present the first four entries in the private journal of Mr. Sherlock Holmes.

 

\--Jane Turenne,

Curator of the Holmes Collection, Victoria and Albert Museum, London

 

**********

 

 

**April 27, 1889**

This is foolishness. This is a silly and impractical and dangerous idea. I have only been alone for a day. I am not yet so pathetic or so lonesome that I must talk to myself, even on paper. Not while I have a full bottle in my morocco case.

 

**April 28, 1889**

The cocaine does not make it better. Quite the contrary.

Perhaps I am not taking enough.

 

**April 29, 1889**

No. The dosage does not seem to have been the problem.

He has been married for three days. He has a wife, a hotel room in the south of France, and a little house near Paddington to come home to. I have an empty bottle, a pipe with a broken stem, and a violin that still plays his favorite tunes.

I am going about this all wrong. I bought this little book because he told me that writing about one's life can be as good as reliving it, that recording and rereading can bring back the sounds and the sights and the sensations and the emotions. The emotions of the last few days are not worth bringing back.

And yet, I hesitate now to write about that which I would remember. Might it not darken those brilliant memories, to drag them out of myself at such a time as this? Might not they be forever tarnished by the patina of wretchedness that hangs about me now? In that case, the game should not be worth the candle. Perhaps I had better leave well enough alone. I do not know anymore. I do not know…

 

**April 30[-May 1], 1889**

Just after writing yesterday, I finally succumbed to my exhaustion. I had barely slept for a week, and I appear to have let fatigue and sentimentality get the better of me. That is most unlike me. It will not happen again.

I woke about two hours ago, at nine-thirty in the evening, after sleeping for more than a full day. It is a warm, clear, moonless night and I wanted some air. Slipping this journal and a pen into one pocket of my dressing gown, a candle and matches into the other, I unlatched the left panel of the bow window and climbed onto the sill. There was one storey of Baker Street between me and the roof, but with the upstairs window as a convenient hand- and foothold, the ascent did not prove difficult.

The edge of the roof makes quite a comfortable seat and the stars are wonderful. I watched the lights of London going out as the city fell asleep. Gemini is bright tonight, and I have gazed at the hand-clasped pair and missed my friend. On this evening, as every other since the days of the ancients, _sidera multa, cum tacet nox, furtivos hominum vident amores_.*

I think I am ready to write it now.

I have always been a sensualist. I cherish the feeling of fine fabrics on my skin; I revel in caviar and _foie gras_; and music… ah, there is nothing that the best music cannot do for me! The same heightened awareness that has made me world's only consulting detective makes me also an aesthetic connoisseur, and I relish the finer things as a similar form of mental exaltation to that of my cases.

In despite of these tendencies, I would never have described myself as a carnally-minded man. Many times have I protested against love and its corollary, lust, and my protestations have been honest ones. The fairer sex holds no charms for me. The rustle of skirts does not pluck at my heartstrings, nor the hint of maidenly blush on alabaster cheeks, nor the merest whiff of delicate, floral scents, nor the silken caress of curls beneath my fingertips. I tried one or two little experiments in that vein in my younger years, when I was the tall, dark son of the local squire upon whom every belle in Sussex was eager to throw herself. They were none of them successes.

As a result of those adolescent explorations, and of one other minor experience the details of which I will not record just yet, I knew, in theory, that I was an invert. Knowing in theory and knowing in practice are, however, very different things, and the question was so decidedly moot that I did not pay it any significant mind. To be perfectly frank, it was not something about which I wanted to think. It was far easier to disregard the demands of my flesh or, on those rare occasions when they became too insistent to dismiss, to resolve them on my own. It is not that I was ignorant of human lust and the various methods by which it may be alleviated; a detective uninformed about such a common cause of crime would be worse than useless, and I had read extensively and exhaustively on the subject. But I had never had occasion to test my borrowed erudition on another person of either sex, and I did not believe it likely that I ever would.

When Watson first came into my life, I did not attach to him any particular significance. He was one mystery of many in my early life at Baker Street, neither more nor less intriguing than dear Mrs. Hudson or the deep scratch in the hinge of the sitting-room door. But time passed, as time will. I soon deduced that Mr. Hudson died shortly after his marriage in the cholera epidemic of '54 and that the scratch had been caused when the marble mantelpiece was installed in my bedroom, and yet Watson remained a mystery.

As I often have cause to remark, the simplest cases are usually the most difficult to solve. Such is the problem with Watson. On the face of him, he is such an ordinary man. His wants are moderate, his habits regular, his values conventional, his manners impeccable--on the surface. That is the John Watson that the world sees, but it is a poor sketch of the man he truly is.

Every time I have tried to classify Watson, he has slipped through my grasp. Originally I set him down as an uncommonly kind and considerate fellow, and so he is; and yet, he has a remarkable faculty for assessing the faults of others, and his singular, dry humor spares no one. I had marked him as an upright and gentlemanly sort, which is certainly true, and yet on those occasions when I have asked him to ignore the law in a worthy cause he has agreed, not grudgingly but with some measure of eagerness. Under normal circumstances there is not a saner or more balanced person in London, but at least once a month I have been roused by anguished cries as the torments of war come back to haunt my poor friend's dreams. His intelligence is not exceptional in some ways, but he is a quick study, has a level head, enjoys an admirable memory, writes lucidly and engagingly, and possesses a knowledge of music and art which continually surprises me.

In short, I never can get his limits.

I am unused to meeting people who confound me so. At first I desired to spend time with him because he was such an enigma, and in the process I found that he made an admirable companion. Before I knew it, he was my dearest friend and I could not imagine being parted from him. That was all, but at the same time, that was everything.

So things stood with me until just four months ago, the day on which Watson wrote his miraculous letter. I will not attempt now to deny that I loved him before then, with more emotion than I felt for any other human being, but it was an innocent love, a brotherly love. It was the adoration of a child for a first best friend.

The seventeenth of December began unfortunately. I was between cases, I was bored, and Watson's decision to abandon me for his Christmas shopping did not help in that regard. I had neither any chemical experiments planned nor any monograph in desperate need of penning. The organization of my papers would have been dull beyond expression without my biographer present to gasp at my gripping narrations and praise my brilliance. That left only the violin… and the syringe.

I was somehow loath, however, to turn to the cocaine that day. I would like to believe that I was reluctant to cause Watson pain--I know very well how much he dislikes my habit--but I had certainly done so often enough in the past. It may have been that I had finished my last case only the day before, and I had not yet reached an advanced state of mental torpor. For whatever reason, I avoided the drug and turned instead to bow and strings as my increasingly ineffectual weapons against _ennui_.

By noon I had sunk deep into my black mood, and I was relieved to hear the front door swing open and shut again. It must be Watson returning! He would be just the distraction I wanted. But for long minutes after the opening of the door, he did not ascend. Whatever could be keeping him in the foyer? I jerked my bow brusquely back and forth in my impatience. Finally his steps sounded on the stairs. I arranged my body into an 'I am disconsolate' pose, and schooled my features to languor. Surely that attitude would draw him out, for he seemed to consider it his personal responsibility to cajole me out of my darker moods.

The confusion and disappointment that I felt when he rushed past me with hardly a glance and shut his door with a slam may well be imagined. I heard the rasp of fabric and the slight, muffled thud as he slid down with his back against the door.

Well, this was peculiar! What could have caused the good doctor to behave in so singular a way? Everything about him bespoke agitation, discomfort, distress. What had precipitated such strong emotions?

There were a few factors I could definitively eliminate. Drugs or drink would have left unmistakable signs upon his person; gambling or other money-troubles would do the same to his pocketbook. I had recently seen enough of each to rule those ills out. There must be at least one other person involved in it, then, but I had no clue as to who this other party might be. I should have to suspend my suppositions until further data presented itself.

In the meanwhile, I would need to devise a stratagem to restore him to his usual good humor. The brooding Watson is one of the least intriguing specimens of the type. Even a Watson who scolds, or is determined to punish me for waking him at some unseemly hour, or attempts to teach me my manners, provides more brain-fuel than one who locks himself in his room and sulks. Whatever his trouble, I would simply have to distract him from it.

A quick glance around the room could not fail to suggest a method of rousing him from the doldrums. About a week ago I had made a half-hearted and abortive attempt at stemming the tide of paperwork that threatened to engulf the sitting room. Only one case-worth of documents had actually been docketed, but my old tin box was still sitting, abandoned, beneath the chemical table. There must be some amusing tale hidden among those old scraps that could divert my friend for awhile.

Hefting myself from my slouch and depositing my violin unceremoniously on the nearest available flat surface, I walked across the room, pulled the box into the middle of the floor, and sat down cross-legged beside it. I opened the lid and breathed in the mingled scents of a decade of the cases with which my own life's story is so intimately intertwined. For a few minutes I simply sat, quietly savoring the flood of memories that accompanied this carefully-preserved collection of oddities. Then I began carefully, reverently, to lift out little bundles of papers, considering each as I did so.

For a tranquil hour I remained thus occupied in contemplating my collection of mysteries. It was not until I was nearing the bottom of the box, surrounded on all sides by piles of papers wrapped up in red tape, that I began to encounter those cases which had enlivened the pre-Watsonian era of my existence. Most of them were quickly discarded--this one was too like another we had solved together, that had turned out to be such a trifling affair, this other cast me in quite an unflattering light--but a few might hold some interest. I gave some serious consideration to the case of Mathews, for the thrilling dénouement in which he had knocked out my tooth with an aluminum crutch full of smuggled diamonds was not to be missed, but in the end I decided that I would treat him to my very first case of all. The props I had on hand were simply too excellent. I could picture it perfectly: 'and this, my dear Watson,' I should say, as I presented the paper to him with a flourish, 'is the message which struck Justice of the Peace Trevor dead with horror when he read it.' Yes, that would do nicely.

I had only just made my decision when the doorbell pealed. After a few moments, a characteristic jerky rat-a-tat sounded against the sitting-room door. Rising slowly, I crossed just close enough to swing the door open, but kept my face towards my chair as I did so.

"Come in, Inspector Jones."

His response was entirely predictable. "How did you know it was me, Mr. Holmes?"

"I know of no one else who both ascends the staircase in that lumbering manner and abuses the poor woodwork to that peculiar rhythm."

Jones laughed at my description, managing to suppress all but a hint of his annoyance. "Quite so, quite so. Well, Mr. Holmes, I'm sure you're wondering what's brought me here tonight."

I need not record the exact words of Jones' offer; Watson has done a fair enough job of capturing them, and I may refer to his account should the need arise. Suffice it to say that the longer he spoke, the more sure I became that he had other motives than his stated ones. Professional jealousy seemed by far the most likely of these. What an ungrateful lout the man was! Was it not enough for him to have credit for my successes; must I also be made to take the blame for his failures? And did he really think me addlepated enough to go along with such a plan?

Pride, as the saying runs, goeth before the fall, and so was it with me. I was halfway through my tirade at Jones before my good sense caught up with my arrogance. Whatever else Jones thought of me, he did not think me an imbecile. He must have known--he _had_ known--that I would refuse the case he offered. And therefore… he had wanted me to refuse it?

It was too late for me to change tacks now. I finished my speech with as much bluster and braggadocio as I could, and threw myself upon the few moments of stunned silence following its conclusion as the time I needed to sort everything out. Jones had wanted me to refuse the case. Why had he brought it to me, then? He must be testing something. Did he want to know whether his investigation had become public knowledge, or whether I had heard of the MP's alleged proclivities before? If so, why not just ask me? No, it was me he was testing, but why? To assess my loyalty to the force? There must be better ways of doing that. There was some reason why he had chosen this particular case. I had almost reached it, I almost had it...

Watson's door swung open, and my thoughts scattered in a disturbed flock. I managed to direct my glare at Jones rather than Watson, but it was a near thing.

From the corner of my eye I noted that Watson was presenting Jones with one of his most jovial smiles. I, his dearest friend and fellow-lodger, had rated not even so much as a hello from Watson when he came in earlier, and yet the insufferable Jones was gifted with a warm greeting and the most beatific of grins. Something was clearly wrong.

As he crossed over to the fireplace, Watson shot me a look that I rarely see on his face, and yet can interpret perfectly. That particular expression means something like "it is my turn to be in charge now, Holmes, so it's best if you follow my lead."

I cannot articulate how near panic Watson can send me with that simple but eloquent glance. It is not, I hasten to mention, that I distrust my friend. His instincts as a whole are above average and at rare moments he shows flashes of positive genius. But obeying without question is a skill, an art even, and one which I have had neither cause nor patience enough to acquire.

In my unhappy contemplation of what that look might portend--I believe I catalogued no less than thirty-seven options, none of them remotely correct--I did not catch Watson's few lines of babbling introduction, which might have in some small way prepared me for what was to come. No matter how profound my distraction, however, I could not have failed to hear his next words.

"Congratulate me, Inspector. I'm to be married."

I do not know how to describe what I felt. I felt _everything_. Watson's words seemed to have overfilled my brain and spilled out through my body. My toes curled; my stomach felt as though it had been kicked in; my fingers clenched; my teeth gritted; my temples exploded; my muscles spasmed; every hair stood on end. Watson wrote in his account that, apart from paling considerably, I did no more than jerk forward awkwardly in my seat, but to me it felt as though not even the slightest part of me could appear unaffected, for no part was.

At first I could make no sense of Watson's declaration. I do not mean that I could not understand why he made it, though that was also true. I mean that his very words did not convey any meaning to me. For a few seconds my mind was a perfect and absolute blank, and then my thoughts stuttered back into motion again and came so rapidly that I could hardly keep track of them. Marriage? Watson? Why? What inducements could any lady possess that would tempt him away from Baker Street? What could be better than the life we lived here, our ideal blend of happy domesticity with the interest and excitement of our cases? Who was this woman who was going to take him away from me? And, more importantly, how could I convince him of her unworthiness?

It occurred to me then that this startling new development must be the true explanation of his strange actions earlier in the day. That romance was his trouble would certainly explain why he did not turn to me for comfort or advice; among counselors to the lovelorn, I am most assuredly not a prodigy. But, then again, what trouble was there in the matter, from his point of view? From the sound of it, his wooing had been entirely successful, and, indeed, my gallant Watson could hardly have failed to attain that fortunate she at whom he aimed. Yet, when he returned, he had crept into our rooms, after a long pause in the hall, in a manner more trepid than triumphant. Was this the behavior of a man whose proposals had just been accepted?

I had got so far in my musings when Watson's eye caught mine in the mirror above the fire. In his letter he wrote of the distress he perceived in my eyes (in terms so overdramatically mawkish that in reading them I was almost distracted from his point), but he seems not to have realized that the same emotion dominated in his features. It all came to me then. It was I--I!--who had caused him such discomfort earlier. I, who was supposed to be his dearest friend, had proved a blot on what ought to have been a blissfully happy day for him. With all my former unkind prattling about love, I had made this usually fearless man so positively cowed by the thought of my reaction that he required a witness before he could reveal his engagement to me. In truth, he was not unwise to behave so, for I cannot imagine that I should have responded very creditably to a more casual announcement. Had he sought to share his happiness with me in private, I should in all likelihood have squashed it in the most cavalier fashion imaginable, and not thought twice about it.

Remorse is not an emotion which I experience often or tolerate well. Just then I was flooded with it. I was out of my chair before I knew what I was about and was halfway to the door before recalling that Watson and Jones would expect some explanation for my departure. 'It has only just occurred to me that I am quite the worst friend in London, and I should like to be alone to think it over,' while true, did not seem a wise parting remark. Seizing upon the last fragment of conversation that had happened to fall upon my ears, I managed to mutter something suitably withering, snatched my coat and hat, and fled.

It is as well that I know London by heart. A stranger who wandered through the city as aimlessly as I did would doubtless have found himself beaten black-and-blue in a back alley somewhere. But while my brain was busy cataloguing the innumerable ways in which I had failed to deserve Watson's devotion, my knowledgeable feet kept me more or less out of harm's way.

My thoughts were surprisingly clear. I seemed to have gained an outsider's perspective on my own selfishness. I had for a friend a man who would follow me to the very throne of Proserpina and back without even bothering to ask why, and my first thought, when realizing that he must be in love, was to wonder how I could disillusion him. My first instinct, on hearing of his engagement, had been horror that he would be leaving me, rather than joy at his prospective happiness. And worst, by far the worst of all, was the degree to which my unforgivable self-centeredness was matched by his utter selflessness, for he, too, habitually put my feelings first. My poor Watson! I had failed him; I was failing him still. One of us must look out for his happiness, and, if he was not sensible enough to do it himself, that one would have to be me. No longer would I wound him with cold words; no more would I so casually abuse his trust in me. For the first time, I resolved that I must treat my Watson as an end rather than a means.

Twilight had passed into night hours ago. I had been wandering for hours in the December cold, and it was some time since I had last been able to feel my feet. As I turned my steps back towards Baker Street, I swore to myself that I would do everything in my power to see to it that Watson's marriage was a happy one. He deserved as much, and so much more, from me.

Before long I had passed over the well-known threshold, and was drinking in the blessed warmth of the hall. Our good landlady appeared at my elbow.

"Ah, Mrs. Hudson. Excellent. Is the doctor in?"

"No, Mr. Holmes, he left about half-an-hour ago. I've just finished tidying the sitting room, and he left something for you on the table--a letter, it looks like. He was scribbling away at it all the afternoon."

He had departed before I returned, and left behind him a long letter. That did not bode well. On the other hand, he had stayed at Baker Street for hours before departing, so perhaps he was not avoiding me. There was one easy way to find out.

"_Thank_ you, Mrs. Hudson. I should like a pot of tea, if it's not too much trouble."

She pursed her lips. "It's past eight o' clock, Mr. Holmes. You'll be awake half the night if you drink tea at this hour. Supper would be better for…"

"Thank you, Mrs. Hudson, but tea will be quite sufficient."

Her muttering and her glare pursued me up all seventeen steps.

The sitting-room was in a despicably orderly state. Watson's letter jumped to the eye, a slash of white against the brown of the table. The envelope was thick, the direction neatly written. He had used his best writing paper--what did that mean, I wondered?--and covered a full packet of it with tightly-packed, rather hurried script. From the length of the thing, it was no wonder that it had taken a full afternoon to pen; it was quite an epic epistle to write to a man whom one had seen only a few hours before.

Unfolding the pages, I settled into my armchair. I noticed at once that he had not written in ordinary English, but that was no bar to reading it. In the studies of my boyhood I happened to stumble upon the Ogham finger-language of the Ancient Brits, and throughout my youth my brothers and I used our own simple anglicized variant as a way to pass messages behind our tutor's back. By the time I was fourteen it occurred to me that the pre-Latinate alphabet of the Druids might, with a little improvement, provide the pattern for a system of transposed phonetics which would prove a singularly simple cipher to employ but would nonetheless be agony in the decoding. When it took Mycroft four weeks of hard toil to crack my written system, I knew that I had hit upon something worth keeping.

I have a habit of slipping into this little code of mine whenever I am writing for my own amusement, and therefore we had not been living together many months before Watson happened to notice a sample and ask me of it. As he had by then already begun to assist me on my cases I thought it was as well that he should learn it, for it might be useful to leave messages for his eyes alone. We spent a happy afternoon huddled over the dining room table playing at teacher and student, by the end of which he was quite a proficient. In the years since he has taken to using it for the more sensitive of his case-notes, and so by now he can write in it as effortlessly as I.

While my comprehension of his letter was, therefore, unhindered by his strange choice of writing style, my curiosity was certainly piqued. I took the first few sentences at a leisurely pace, but as the import of the thing grew on me I read faster and faster until I was fairly racing through the pages. I had hardly time to take in the sense of it, much less to react, before I had reached its conclusion. A monstrous silence settled over the sitting-room.

I was transfixed. I was stupefied. And yet, I am sure it was no more than a few seconds before I sprang from my seat with a cry and dashed headlong for the door.

I have very long legs, and I keep myself, as a whole, in excellent physical condition. I would be an able runner even with far less practice than my profession affords me. I ran as though every dæmon in Hell was after me, and I daresay that, had any been, he would not have caught me. I was out the door of Baker Street quicker than a thought (though I only just managed to avoid upsetting Mrs. Hudson and her tea-tray in the hall) and to the cabstand at the corner in barely more time than that.

It occurred to me as I was leaping into the cab that Watson had not written his plans for the evening. He would not want to propose in Mrs. Forrester's sitting room; it was not likely to provide either the atmosphere or the privacy required for thoughtful wooing. Where, then, would he take Miss Morstan? It must be somewhere close--after the snow of the morning, the streets were navigable but not yet fully clear--and not too expensive, for I knew that there was more in his bank than his pocket and he had not had time to transfer funds from the one to the other. The theatre and the symphony would not allow for conversation, it was too cold for a walk in the park, and too late for any of the museums or historical venues which London provides in such profusion. A restaurant, then, or a café, or something of the kind.

"Stamford Street, and as quick as lightning, man! There's half-a-guinea in it for you if you manage it in a fifteen minutes."

The cabby was off like a shot at that, but he could not possibly have driven fast enough for me. I must make it in time; I must prevent this catastrophic plan of Watson's from reaching its conclusion! I had to admit that, in an abstract sort of way, his stratagem seemed to be achieving its desired results, but what was that to me? Never again could I look at myself in the eye if I stood back and allowed Watson to bear single-handedly a burden that was meant for us both. That sweet, loyal, wonderful fool had rushed off, as always, incomprehensibly eager to sacrifice his happiness for mine. But it could not be allowed to come to that. Did he not comprehend that my felicity was conditional upon his?

That was not a thought with which I was entirely comfortable. Flustered from my musings, I noticed that, while I had utterly neglected to bring either my overcoat or my hat, I still clutched Watson's letter, envelope and all, in my right hand. Folding it carefully, I slipped it into the pocket of my frock coat. I should have liked to re-read it, but it was far too dark inside the four-wheeler for that. Fortunately, my memory, while not strictly photographic, is admirably exact. Though I could not have sworn to every word, I could page through a very tolerable mental facsimile.

When I had read it in Baker Street, interest and surprise had overwhelmed all other emotions. It was only on the interminable cab-ride, as I retraced it in my head, that I had room in my mind for more nuanced reactions. As I made my way through London, I had leisure enough for fury at the suspicions of the Yard; for satisfaction in the courage and devotion of young Wellstone; for amusement at Watson's foyer foray into my methods and his assumption of my omniscience. I allowed myself a certain degree of annoyance over the fact that Watson had not at once confided his experiences in me, but this was promptly subsumed by the intense rush of pride and pleasure engendered by his excessive praise a few paragraphs later.

Could all of it really be true? Did he really think me 'kind,' 'sensitive,' 'noble,' 'benevolent,' or, most unbelievable of all, 'beautiful?' And when he said that he loved me…

"'oy there, Mr. 'olmes! F'r a man in such an 'urry, you dun't seem none too keen to be gettin' on, do ya?" The cab had finally pulled to a stop among the bright streetlamps of the theatre district, which at this hour of the night was far from deserted even on a Monday.

"That's quite enough from you, George," I said, tossing a coin at the grinning cabby.

"D'you want I should wait?"

I considered the request for a moment. "Better not. I'm not sure how long I'll be."

"Right then, Mr. 'olmes. Good luck t'ya."

As the cab pulled away into the night, I headed down the street, which was lined with the fashionable little _bistros_ and _cafés_ which clamored for the business of the theatregoing masses. Marcini's was a favorite of Watson's, and it seemed the likeliest place, but I scanned the crowds as I went just in case.

As it happened, I was entirely correct. The sight of him through the window brought me up short. They were sitting at the corner table. Her hand was in his.

I have no wish to recall my emotions at that moment. I have been beaten; I have been stabbed; I have had the teeth knocked from my mouth. I have, in my boxing days, been hit with such force that I was flung a dozen feet across the room. I would infinitely prefer to repeat any of those experiences than to relive my feelings as I watched Watson, my Watson, smile at her.

Good heavens, I am becoming positively maudlin. Nevertheless, I must insist that it was indeed excruciating to me, watching her with him. Perhaps it was worse because I am so unaccustomed to emotions of that kind, but I began to understand how men come to kill out of jealousy. After all, here was I, Sherlock Holmes, the supreme reasoner, made a gawking, hatless imbecile on the London sidewalk, and all for the sake of a man whom I had never even kissed.

Kissed? Where had _that_ thought come from? Did I _wish_ to kiss Watson? Did I wish to _kiss_ Watson?

I can, on occasion, be infernally dense, but in this case I outdid myself as never before. It took me seven years, eleven months, seventeen days, six hours and forty-eight minutes to detect what ought to have been obvious to me the moment John Watson stepped into my laboratory on New Year's Day of 1881.

It shook me to the core. When one lives long enough with a provisional theory, one begins to treat that theory as fact. The discovery of this new piece of evidence was enough to send some eight or ten such cherished theories of mine--about myself, about Watson, and about what my life was likely to be--crumbling into dust. Indeed, it was as though Fate had shouted "Norbury!" in my ear at the top of her lungs. And yet, for all that, I was absurdly, deliriously happy, for I was in the very uncommon position of finding the thing I wanted above all else clasped in my own hand. I wanted John Watson, as I had never wanted anyone, and he was already mine.

Then, with a rush of panic, the sequel came to me: and I should lose him, if I did not act at once. A hoarse little noise escaped my throat. I sprang through the doors of the restaurant and dashed over to their table.

I am proud to say that Watson's observational skills are progressing apace. While Miss Morstan's face betrayed nothing but surprise from the first, he looked me up and down, took in my state of _déshabillé_, and noted the corner of the envelope peeking out of the pocket of my frock coat before he turned pale.

It occurred to me as I watched him blanch that I had rushed in where angels would have feared to tread. However, while everyone is sooner or later a fool, some of us are also actors. I am an _exceptional_ actor. Turning away from Watson to address his companion, I slipped into charm with no more effort than breathing.

"What a pleasure to see you again, Miss Morstan; a very good evening to you! I know that it is dreadfully discourteous of me, but I fear I must borrow the good doctor for just a few minutes. It is a matter of some urgency, though I do promise to return him to you quite as quickly as possible, for I would not wish to deprive you of his incomparable companionship any longer than was absolutely necessary. You have no objection, I trust?"

I spoke so briskly and so decidedly, and accompanied the speech with such an expression of genuine, considerate regret that I quite bewildered the poor creature. I could almost have pitied her had she not, after timorously tendering her assent, placed her gloved hand on Watson's arm and murmured, "Do hurry back, Doctor," in an unmistakably inviting tone.

"Just as quickly as I am able, my dear lady. I am truly sorry about this…"

If he had intended to say more he never got the opportunity, for I had grasped his forearm in an iron grip and dragged him bodily out the door.

Once we were out of the restaurant I dropped his arm. "Follow me," I ordered, in my most peremptory tone. No matter how confused or even angry Watson was, I knew he would obey orders given in that voice.

And so he did. Although he spent the short journey from the front door into the alleyway in questioning me ("What the devil are you doing here, Holmes--and how did you find me?" "My dear Watson, with all the little problems you have seen me work out, do you really doubt my ability to deduce your location at a given moment?"), it never occurred to him not to follow.

Together we turned the corner into the dark little alley. About halfway down the street on our left was a shallow alcove set into the brick wall, about seven feet long and two deep. I steered us into this, turned towards him, and immediately began my attack.

"Have you done it yet?"

The imprecise syntax alone ought to have been enough to alert him to the extreme disquietude of my mind. Seeing that it came in combination with a quavering of my voice, slight though it was, he should have known at once how deeply I was affected at that moment. Nevertheless, my dear Watson, though usually a sensible man, can be singularly obtuse where I am concerned. It is to this only that I can attribute his failure to recognize to the urgency of my query.

"Really, Holmes, this is the most unbelievably unhelpful interruption on your part. Women do not generally take kindly…"

It was no time to observe the social niceties (I have little tolerance for them at the best of moments). I interrupted him ruthlessly.

"_Watson_, have you done it yet?"

He seemed hardly to have noticed my question, for his stream of nervous babble paused not for an instant. "And you know, it's not such an easy thing for an aging half-pay army surgeon to make himself an object of serious regard for a lady he has met only half-a-dozen times…"

I am not by nature a patient man. Grasping him by the shoulders I pushed him back firmly against the wall of our little brick niche. Adopting a trick I had used heretofore only on criminals and their ilk, I moved in close and towered over him, forcing him to acknowledge my presence. I had finally managed to shock him into silence. He fixed his wide green eyes upon mine.

Though I have no memory of doing so, he insists that I shook him as I spoke. Certainly my words fairly exploded with all the urgency I felt.

"John Hamish Watson, for the love of all things good, answer me! Have you yet proposed to Miss Morstan, yes or no?"

Some distant corner of my mind noted the bob of his adam's apple as he slowly swallowed. His voice, when it came, was soft and sure and simple and beautiful.

"No. Not yet."

The force of those three syllables sealed my eyelids and drew the breath from my body in one long, stuttering exhalation.

"Thank God," I whispered, in the most earnest prayer of my adult life.

I ought to have found something else to say, something poetical and profound, but at that moment I opened my eyes again. I believe that it was the sight of his face turned up to mine that drove the sense from me, but I was treading in realms so far beyond my ken that I was almost past reason from the first. Without another thought, I wound my arms about him and kissed him, hard, on the mouth.

He tasted of whisky and Arcadia tobacco, and the feel of his moustache against my upper lip was more exquisite than I can say. For the first few tense seconds his lips were still and cool against mine. Then in an instant he awaked. He pulled me closer still, until we aligned from top to toe, and returned the kiss with a fervor quite equal to my own.

How long we remained thus, clinging to each other in the December cold, I do not know. It was not lack of breath that separated us. Oxygen had ceased to be necessary.

I am somewhat ashamed to admit that he was the first of us to regain his wits. That shame is not a result of my pride in my own rationality, however. I am ashamed because my kiss ought to have been sufficient to make any return to _terra firma_ on his part quite impossible. Despite my sincere efforts in that vein, he did finally pull his lips from mine.

"Holmes, we are on a public street!" he protested, but his distinct breathlessness belied the admonition.

"No one will see us." In retrospect, I am surprised not that my response was so inane and nonsensical, but that I managed to articulate even such a simple statement before I kissed him again.

He lingered briefly, long enough for me to be sure that he was enjoying the kiss, before breaking away from me again. This time he went so far as to push me gently but resolutely out of his embrace.

"My dear Holmes, as gratifying as all this is, your timing is abominably bad."

"Gratifying, Watson?" My tone clearly expressed my perception of inadequacy of the adjective.

He took a breath, composing himself. "Gratifying, among other things. Also pleasurable, unexpected, intoxicating." There was a pause, and then, softly, "Divine."

I felt a very strange, warm sensation, which seemed to originate around my stomach and spread upwards. I am sure I must have blushed when it reached my cheeks. "That last, I think, is most accurate, if somewhat blasphemous."

He managed to keep the smile from his lips, but it shone out at me from eyes which had grown unusually bright. "Nevertheless, I really must be getting back inside. I do have an engagement to be entering into, you know."

He spoke the words quite casually, but to me they were as shocking and painful as the cruelest reproach could have been. "You do not really still mean to do this foolish thing?" I cried, aghast.

Immediately his palpable joy disappeared, to be replaced equally obviously by anger and hurt. "Foolish? Foolish. I see." His jaw clenched and he spoke with measured deliberation. "Well, Holmes, you may not care whether we both rot in gaol, but I do. I won't just stand by and watch you be ruined, not while there's breath in my body, and particularly not because of me."

"There are other ways…"

"Now? After I've already told Jones about it?" Curse the man, he had a point. At the start of it there would have been a bevy of other options, but Watson's announcement to Jones did complicate matters. I thought furiously, searching desperately for any plausible alternative that would keep us out of court. My inability to discover one was intensely frustrating.

"If you had only come to me! If you had only told me as soon as you discovered the danger…"

It was the wrong thing for me to say. Already tense and on edge, Watson stiffened into positive frost.

"Yes, it was really unpardonable. I am sure that, had I not muddled it all so miserably, Mr. Sherlock Holmes of the amazing deductive powers would have managed not only to rescue us from a life of shame and degradation, but to fix it up so that Scotland Yard sent us away with flowers and chocolates and arms full of groveling letters of apology. If only I had not been such a contemptible coward and had summoned the fortitude to confront you with what I had learned, we should have lived happily ever after until the sun faded out of the sky. Well, if the fault is mine, then the reparations must be mine also. Now please allow me to go and do my penance."

At this he turned and began to stride off purposefully back towards the street. Stricken, I pursued him.

"Watson! Watson, I did not mean… I was not trying to imply…" I grabbed him by the sleeve. He pulled free of my grip and continued on his way. "Watson, damn it all!" Again I caught at him, and again he shook me off. We were nearing the end of the alley now. Desperately, I clamped a hand around his wrist and clung with all my wiry strength. "Please, John!"

I am not sure whether it the entreaty or the use of his first name, but he stopped and turned back to me with the look only he wears when deeply touched. Pulling him back into the shadows, I felt the fingers around his wrist slide down of their own volition to mingle with his own.

"We'll go away. We'll get out of England. I have a little money saved, and there's no place in the world where a doctor and a violinist can't manage to eat. We'll go to Paris or Venice or Cairo or Bombay or wherever you like. For the love of God, John, don't leave me. You are so frequently and so vocally appreciative of me and my petty talents, but you never mention that I was nobody before you met me, and without you I'll be nobody again. The only touch of greatness in my life is you."

He pulled my hand up to his face and pressed his warm lips against my palm. Lowering our still-clasped hands, he looked back at me. "It's a very tempting offer, love, but you know as well as I do that we can't just run away. No, wait a moment; hear me out. I believe that I understand your character better than anyone--notwithstanding some rather extraordinary revelations in the last few minutes. I am sure that you could never be happy in such a situation. For the first weeks or even months there would be a certain charm in it; it would be a life of adventure and novelty and romance, and that would be all to the good. But before any too long you would begin to miss London and to yearn to be Sherlock Holmes of Baker Street again. Do not think me jealous. You need your puzzles, your mysteries, more than you will ever need me. They are so much of what you are, and I would never ask you to be less than yourself. I am happy to be a part of your work; I have no need to be a substitute for it."

"In the long run, you need not forfeit one for the other. We have this one chance for a happy life together, eventually, and I intend to take it. I am going to marry Mary Morstan. You shall not dissuade me. The only choice you have to make is whether you will make it easier for me, or harder."

Watson always knows what it is I need from him. I am abashed, now, to think how sorely I must have tried his resolve, and am inspired still by the quiet bravery that sustained him. As much as I wished to protest, it was obvious that he meant what he said and that his reasons were entirely honorable. As he so correctly put it, the only decent thing I could do now was support him. I vowed to do so with all my heart.

"My dear Watson," I said, softly, "you have been a prop to my strength so many, many times before. Can you suppose that I would refuse to do the same this once for you?" I smiled at him, a sad but honest smile. "You have, at least, assigned us each our proper burden to bear. You, the gregarious member of our little band, will spend your years of exile burdened by company, whereas I, the taciturn, unsociable partner, must suffer solitude. In that sense it is certainly the wisest scheme. I shudder to imagine what disasters would undoubtedly result if it were I chosen as the unwilling groom in our little melodrama."

"I admit that such a scenario is beyond the limits of even my romantic imagination." He smiled back at me, then sobered. "I must go now, Holmes. I've been too long already."

He moved as though to pull his hand from mine. "Watson!" He stopped. I cleared my throat. "I was wondering… that is, I know that your instincts for these things are far more developed than mine, but… well, I cannot imagine that, after this interruption, Miss Morstan's mood will be particularly obliging."

"I seem to recall an attempt to convince you of the same thing some minutes ago," he remarked dryly.

"Yes, indeed. Would it not, therefore, be better to delay your plans temporarily?"

His eyes turned wary. "I believe I have made it clear…"

I hurried on. "I promise I am no longer trying to dissuade you. I still am not… happy, about the whole scenario, but I will accept it. It simply does not seem likely to me that a few hours reprieve can have any detrimental effect upon your plan."

As he considered my suggestion, I slipped my free arm around his waist and let my hand rest at the small of his back. When Watson made that amusing little list of my skills some years ago, he might, had it occurred to him, have marked _coquetterie_ at 'nil,' but I made an effort at it all the same. Judging by the darkening of his eyes as I spoke, I do not think I was entirely unsuccessful.

"My dear John, here are you, the noble, dashing, heroic British soldier, preparing for a long deployment on a dangerous front. Is it not the duty of any soldier's sweetheart to provide him at least one night of happy memories before sending him away?"

To my delight, he blushed to the roots of his hair. "You cannot conceive how strange it is to hear you describe yourself as anybody's 'sweetheart,' much less mine."

Unpracticed though I may be in the art of seduction, I have observed the maneuverings of its practitioners on many occasions. I slid just a bit closer to him, in the most liquid way that I could manage, curled my lips into the suggestion of a smile, and half-lowered my eyelids. "I have been a fool, John. You have been mine for so much time, and I have wasted all of it." Again I moved slightly nearer, nervous excitement fluttering in my belly. "Be mine for one night longer, and I promise that I shall not make the same mistake again."

His eyes positively rolled back in his head. It was possibly the proudest moment of my entire adult life.

He laughed shakily. "Curse it, in this of all things I thought I should have the advantage, for a little while at least. I had forgotten what a devilishly quick study you are once you put your mind to something."

I smiled in earnest now and pulled away from him. "Go back in there. Tell her you want to atone for your appalling behavior tonight by taking her to walk in the gardens at the Crystal Palace tomorrow. Use that poetical turn of yours; describe the trees and the flowers and the fountains and hint that her beauties shall put them all to shame. You know the sort of thing."

He quirked an eyebrow at me and broke into a hearty laugh. "My dear Holmes," he gasped through his merriment, and then, suddenly, he moved a hand to the back of my head and pressed his lips firmly and decidedly against mine. I had only just begun to respond when he pulled away again. "You really do know nothing whatever about women!"

This last was thrown back over his shoulder as he turned to depart. "You will wait until tomorrow, then?" I cried at his retreating form.

"Yes, you shall have your reprieve."

"And you will hurry back to Baker Street?"

I had just time enough to perceive his nod before he walked around the corner and vanished from my sight.

 

**********

My candle burned out half-an-hour ago, as though in deference to the rising sun which had just surmounted the horizon. I have had to fight a long duel with the morning dew for the possession of these pages, but as today is May Day perhaps it will make my words beautiful. The constables are strolling down the streets, puffed up with pride over their new uniforms, and within a few hours a steady stream of Irregulars will come knocking at my door, arms laden with flowers, demanding pennies. On this one day of the year, Mrs. Hudson will smile on my dirty little ragamuffins and invite them in for cookies and tales of Robin Hood, who died upon the first of May. She may even go so far as to intimate--bless her sweet old heart--that the tall, morose lodger who pays them their shillings is something of a Robin Hood himself.

I ought, I suppose, to climb back down to the sitting room before my good landlady realizes that I am missing and goes to search for me. I scare the poor woman witless quite often enough as it is; it is best if I avoid doing so when not absolutely necessary.

Writing this has been unexpectedly addictive. I have such a desire to set it all down, but I know that I must be circumspect, must ration out the memories I have. They are so few, and they must last me for so long. I cannot afford to be greedy. In particular, I cannot rush because I have been reliving it as I write. Although I am sitting here alone on the Baker Street roof, my lips are still buzzing with the feeling of that last hasty kiss…

Yes, it seems as though Watson was right. He usually is.

 

 

* "the sky has stars at night shining in quiet upon the furtive loves of mortal men." Catullus 7; English translation by Peter Whigham.


	3. Chapter 3

_Further excerpts from the coded journal of Mr. Sherlock Holmes_

 

**May 12-17, 1889**

 

I had neither time nor inclination to think about the thing beforehand, and no attention to spare while it was going on. It was only afterwards, once that sweet madness had passed and I was left alone in our rooms…

No, no, this will not do. Lord knows I was not shy then; why should I be so now? The point is to tell it all, and I intend to do so. It is different, though, looking back on it in a moment of cool sanity. I find myself blushing to think of things that I did not blush to do, amazed to consider how far removed we were from the dignified gentlemen who usually lived in our rooms. But memories are fragile things, and so I will tell it all--every touch, every look, every word--lest one should slip away from me forever. And I will resist the urge to begin it _in media res_.

I must begin, then, on that December night in the alleyway behind Marcini's as I watched Watson's form disappear. The moment he vanished it occurred to me that I ought to be uncomfortable in any number of ways. I really should have expected some uneasiness with the emotional position in which I found myself. I had not stopped to ask whether I was in love with Watson, nor had I made him any declaration of the kind. And yet I had just offered, in all seriousness, to sacrifice everything I had built for myself, the life and the work which I prized, to be with him. Surely no other explanation of such actions would suffice.

Then there was the other proposition I had made. Before that evening, I had never seriously considered inviting another person into my bed. I should have supposed that the novelty of the experience, if nothing else, would cause me a certain degree of anxiety. I have long known, however, that even my own emotions defy prediction on occasion. I was not frightened of loving him, in either the emotional or the physical sense. On the contrary--I was ebullient, elated, eager. I glowed with the unique pleasure which only a successful suitor can feel, a reckless, surpassing joy the likes of which I had never before experienced. I could not find it in my heart to fear that emotion, overpowering and distracting (and illicit) though it was.

Anticipation of the experiences which awaited me back home brought with it a pleasurable, warm feeling--which, unfortunately, contrasted strongly with the creeping winter chill which was engulfing my extremities. Shaking myself from my reverie, I stepped out into the street and hailed a cab for Baker Street.

I took a moment to consider my timetable. Watson would have to arrange the next day's rendezvous with Miss Morstan and drive her home before heading back to Baker Street. That would give me just time enough to take precautions. I alighted briefly in Mayfair on the way home to put my plan in motion. Through some rather extravagant bribery to the cab-man, I managed to accomplish my errand and still make it home in less than half-an-hour. The moment the cab turned the familiar corner I was off, tossing my fare behind me and dashing for the door.

"Mrs. Hudson!" I bellowed, at even more than my usual volume, as I tapped my wet feet against the doorframe in an attempt to spare that lady's doormat the worst of the winter slush.

By the time I had closed the front door she had stepped into the hall. Her expression was far from encouraging.

I assumed my most charming, cajoling smile. "My dear Mrs. Hudson! I did not wish to disturb you, but I thought it imperative that I proffer my sincere apologies for the unceremonious manner of my departure earlier this evening. To rush past you in such a fashion, when you had just been put to the trouble of making my tea, too, and then not even to stop to beg your pardon… It was utterly unconscionable of me."

Her face was impassive. "Yes, Mr. Holmes, it was."

I groaned inwardly. This was not going to be easy. "Do please allow me to attempt to make it up to you, Mrs. Hudson. I have arranged a little surprise for you--call it an early Christmas present, if you like. I have been of some service to one or two of the managers at Claridge's Hotel, and managed to secure one of their finest suites, in your name, for the next five nights. I cannot imagine a more fitting reward for the woman who is so tireless in her care for others than to have her turn of being looked after, and in first-class style, too. They have one of the best chefs in London--I've attended to your meals, of course--and naturally any place in the city where you might care to go will be within easy reach. What do you say, my dear lady?"

She considered for a moment, then gave a small sniff. "I'm sure it's very kind of you, Mr. Holmes, but I really ought not to go gallivanting off for such a span when it's so near to Christmas."

"Nonsense! A little relaxation and a little luxury before the rush of the holiday season will be just the thing for you. Watson and I can fend for ourselves for a few days; there cannot be any reason why you should not go. You deserve your moment of leisure. Do say you will, Mrs. Hudson."

"Perhaps some other time, Mr. Holmes, though it's very kind of you, I'm sure."

I always have a contingency plan. I dropped my voice to a confidential whisper. "My dear Mrs. Hudson… I did not wish to worry you, but I rather think it would be best if you did accept. You see, I have reason to believe that there may be some trouble in the next few days--a man in my station has many enemies, you know--and I would be easier in my mind knowing that you were somewhere safe. I am more than confident that I can deal with the scoundrels, of course, but there is no need for you to put yourself in the way of risk unnecessarily. Won't you reconsider?"

She never budged. "_I_ am more than confident that you and the doctor can protect me from whatever comes through that door, Mr. Holmes; you always have before. Besides, what should any ruffians of yours want with me?"

My mental list of options was dwindling. I gave an overdramatic sigh. "You have caught me, Mrs. Hudson. He had wished it to be a secret until he was sure of success, but the fact of it is that Watson intends to become affianced--tomorrow, in fact. This may be his last night as a free man. We plan to stay awake most of the night, if not all of it, drinking and smoking and indulging in masculine antics of that kind, and we would no doubt disturb your rest."

"And if that's the case, Mr. Holmes, you'll be needing someone to look after you both in the morning, won't you? I know you two gentlemen right enough." Her tiny frame was defiant, her gaze stern. I was a defeated man.

"For the love of all things good, Mrs. Hudson, I shall promise whatever you like," I relented, reaching the point of desperation at last. "I shall refrain from malodorous chemical experiments for a month. I shall never fire a revolver in house again. I shall organize the papers in the sitting room! Only I beg you, Mrs. Hudson, if only for this one night, will you _please_ go!"

She looked up into my face and said simply, "Oh, very well, then." With the most dignified air imaginable, she turned and walked into her rooms to pack her things.

My breath came out in one long huff. "Thank you, Mrs. Hudson!"

"You _will_ organize the papers in the sitting room!" She called back at me, in her strictest tone.

"By the time you return, it shall be done, I assure you!" I dawdled awkwardly in the foyer for the few minutes it took her to fill her little valise, which I promptly abstracted from her when finally she stepped back into the hall. "Will you permit me to escort you to your cab?"

Her mouth quirked. "Whatever it is that you _really_ have planned for this evening, Mr. Holmes, I hope it's worth all the trouble you're taking to get me out of the way."

I fought frantically against the urge to blush. "And so do I."

She gave me a quizzical look, but said nothing as I helped her on with her coat, opened the door, and offered her my arm. She took it, and we walked in silence to the row of cabs at the corner. "Have a pleasant stay, Mrs. Hudson," I offered as I handed her and her suitcase into the cab.

"Thank you, Mr. Holmes," she said simply. I gave the address to the cabby, passed him a coin, and watched the cab drive off into the night.

A few seconds after the cab had turned the corner I sprang into action. Hurrying back into 221B, I leaped up the stairs and looked around at those familiar rooms with new eyes. I paused at each window to close blinds and draw curtains. That done I headed to my own bedroom and darted to and fro, attempting to bring some order to the chaos that reigned within. Trying not to think too much about what I was doing, I turned my attention to the bed, spending a few moments straightening covers and plumping pillows. Some little degree of nervousness began to affect me. I beat a hasty retreat for the safety of the sitting room.

Waiting in stillness seemed more than I could manage. I paced, stopped, blushed, ran my fingers through my hair, and paced some more. After a while, I stomped back into to my bedroom, poured some water from the pitcher into the bowl of my washstand and splashed it on my face. The temperature contrast between the cold water and my flushed cheeks was extreme, and drove me at once back into the heated comfort of the sitting room to poke at the fire. This must be what it felt like to go mad. My heart was beating so emphatically that it felt as though it would force itself out of my chest, and he was not even in the room! If this kept up, I thought as I rose from beside the fire, he would return to find me stone dead on the floor. A corpse, especially one so conveniently located, would be a nice memento of our acquaintance: one last mystery to be solved. A worthy addition to his collection, too, for his files did not yet contain a case of a man dead of pure anticipation. And my untimely demise would no doubt rescue him from the dreadful sword of matrimony hanging by a thread above his head, so I should not have died in vain…

The front door slammed shut. I leapt over the settee and bolted for the sitting room door as his boots sounded double-time on the stairs.

I beat him to it. He was six steps from the top when I jerked the door open and stepped into the doorway. He was flushed and ruffled and looked absolutely marvelous.

"I have sent Mrs. Hudson away," I said, in what I hoped was an offhand sort of tone.

"Oh, yes?" His voice was charged with the same forced calm, and he had slowed his ascent to a maddeningly deliberate pace.

"Yes," I repeated, stupidly. "An…an early Christmas present," I blathered, as he drew ever nearer. "It took some convincing," he was on the landing, "but eventually she…"

With his usual good sense, Watson took the lead. I have no recollection of how I ended up inside the sitting room or of the closing of the door, but the press of his body as he pinned me against it and the force of his lips on mine are indelibly fixed in my memory. My arms went about his neck and my fingers vanished in his hair.

I was aware of every tiny detail. I could count his coat buttons (six) as they pressed up against me, and the trouser buttons (four) muffled by the wool of the coat. I analyzed and catalogued the feeling of his hair (coarse but still soft) beneath my fingertips. I came to a conclusion, from the taste of him, on the cigarettes he had smoked during the cab ride (three-and-a-half of his favored Bradleys). And then his tongue slipped from between his teeth to run along the rim of my lower lip, and suddenly I was conscious of only that one sensation.

Oddly enough, it seems that thinking with all my might and losing the ability to reflect altogether produce very similar results, for the hyper-concentration of sensation I felt then resembled nothing so much as the overwhelming clarity that I occasionally achieve when all the strands of a case come together. It was the same severance of brain from body, but this time, for once, in favor of the latter.

I gasped at the intensity of it and he, taking my parted lips as an invitation, slid his tongue between them. It did not occur to me that the sensation of another man's tongue in my mouth ought to have been a strange one. Instead I instinctively pushed my own tongue back against his.

A stray thought, something along the lines of _Watson is wearing more clothes than I am, and it isn't fair, you know,_ drifted abstractly across the misty nothingness that had filled my mind. As our mouths co-mingled, my fingers darted down to disengage the buttons of his overcoat. There was a soft susurration and a quiet whumph as it slipped from his shoulders, and my full attention returned to more important matters.

Good God, but the man can kiss! Even with my limited experience in such matters, I knew beyond a doubt that his technique was exceptional. It was not a matter of perfect form, for we were both of us nervous and enthusiastic and inclined to pay less heed than was advisable to trifles like noses and teeth. But there is a single-mindedness about Watson's kisses that produces the most extraordinary effects. His willingness to pour his whole soul into the activity invigorates in a way that the cool finesse of a cynical Lothario could never achieve. He kissed me as though he were a musician and I the unbreathing moment between dissonance and resolution.

Watson's hands had been against the door behind me, hemming me in, but once he had shucked off his coat he applied them to my person. My own hands had come to rest against the broad, firm expanse of his chest and, while his right assumed a firm grasp on my hip, the left reached up to one of mine. Curling his fingers around the back of my hand, he ran his thumb ever-so-delicately over the pulse point in my wrist. When he reached my palm, he reversed his course and retraced the same route backwards, so that his thumbnail dragged slightly against my flesh as he went.

I had fancied that I had some understanding of the sensory capacities of my own body. That such minute contact could affect me so deeply was mind-boggling. I started out of his kiss and stood positively goggling at him. Watson knows me well enough that he recognized my reaction as delighted surprise rather than alarm, and his smile held more than a jot of triumph. Lifting my hand to his mouth, he favored that same sensitive spot on my wrist with a gentle but thorough interrogation by his teeth and tongue. My head lolled back and I closed my eyes, giving myself over to the sheer, unanticipated enormity of the sensation.

"John," I murmured as he worked, "Oh, my dear Watson, I did not know…"

I felt his moustache twitch as he smiled again, and then he released my hand and applied his lips to the wide, vulnerable expanse of neck which I had bared for him. While his hands were busy unfastening my collar, he mumbled to me between kisses, "I fully intend that the list of things which you did not know yesterday but shall know by tomorrow will be encyclopaedic, my dearest Holmes."

The sound that escaped me at that was something like a moan, though the term 'whimper' would have fitted it more nearly than I should care to admit. Then, to my thorough dissatisfaction, he stopped. He pulled away, far enough for him to look me in the eye, and the color heightened in his cheeks. "I…I suppose I should ask," he stammered, "that is, it would be best if I understand… Oh, do come here, won't you?" This last was requested as he pulled me in the direction of the settee and deposited us both upon it. I ended up sideways with my legs across his lap, which was not a position to which I objected in the slightest.

"Holmes," he began again, focusing his attention on removing my shoes, "just how much experience _do_ you have with... this sort of thing?"

The lack of contact between his mouth and any part of my anatomy did wonders for my composure. I even managed a feeble attempt at teasing him. "You have had more than enough opportunity to observe your subject, Doctor. What do you deduce?"

He rolled his eyes. "Fine, then, if you won't tell me, _I_ shall begin." He had by then denuded my right foot (the scrape of his thumbs against my bare instep was illuminating), but paused in his attentions to the left to look me straight in the face. "I had a few male lovers in the army, but none before and none since. Before, it was because I had always supposed that I preferred women, and after..." he paused, looked briefly away, smiled, and heaved a long-suffering sigh. "I really ought not to put it this way; you have strayed quite near enough to autotheism without my help. Nevertheless, I must confess that by the time I recovered my full health, it had become clear to me that there was only one man in England who would ever be worth the risk."

I flushed with pleasure at the compliment and steered the conversation back to him. "But there _have_ been _women_ since your return from the East. Fourteen of them, if I am not very much mistaken. Mostly respectable young widows, but there was the affair of the redheaded maidservant in '85, and that shocking matter which so nearly resulted in a duel between yourself and the Comte…"

"Holmes, really!" He shook his head in mock-disgust. "Sometimes that omniscience of yours can be decidedly annoying. It makes one wonder how we ever even became friends, much less…"

"Ended up tangled up together on the sofa, confessing the deepest secrets of our hearts?" I grinned mischievously at him. "By the by, old fellow, I do wish you would attend to my other shoe; the asymmetry of it all is quite appalling."

He obliged me as always, but not before pointing out, "It seems to me that I am the only one of us who has done any confessing thus far."

I fidgeted. He deserved to know this part of my past, but that did not mean I would enjoy speaking of it. "I shall tell this story once, and once only. Interrupt me at your peril. I do not desire sympathy, but knowing you as I do I can hardly suppose that you will not feel it. I beg, however, that you shall refrain from mentioning it."

He was sitting very still, a curious look in his eyes. "All right," he said simply, and waited.

I made it as brief as I could. "I spent two years of my adolescence attempting to convince myself that I was interested in women. I finally gave it up on my sixteenth birthday, which was the day when Marianne Evans managed to badger me into kissing her breasts. That was, I think, the only experience of my lifetime which might most precisely be described by the adjective 'horrid.'" Two decades later, my face still puckered at the memory. On the other side of the settee, Watson was trying not to laugh.

"Unfortunately for me, Miss Evans was a devious, persistent, cruel little creature who did not suffer the ensuing rejection lightly. She had a brother, Hal, who had been a childhood friend of mine. I have no doubt she spun him a pretty tale--most likely she intimated that I had compromised her honor--and managed to secure his assistance in her scheme."

It was becoming more difficult now. "The Evanses were neighbors of ours. One day in spring, a few months after the regrettable scene between Miss Evans and myself--it was just after Easter, for Mycroft was visiting--brother and sister came to pay us a visit for the day. Hal suggested to me that we walk in the garden and I, all too eager to avoid his sibling, was quick to agree. He led me to a sheltered corner of the grounds, which I now know had been specially selected for the purpose, and proceeded, simply put, to seduce me (though with much more subtlety than his sister had ever displayed in her own manoeuvres). He kissed me. I responded. There were some few shy caresses."

"I still find it unaccountable that I failed to hear their approach, but I suppose that young Mr. Evans was doing all in his power to distract me. He must have been listening intently himself, for he timed the thing flawlessly. He pulled his lips from mine, shoved me away from him and began to shout accusations of perversion just a moment after my father rounded the corner with Marianne Evans on his arm. With such a compelling tableau so carefully crafted for his perusal, what else could the old man have concluded but that I, his shameless deviant of a son, had been pressing my aberrant attentions upon my innocent neighbor?"

"It was an eventful day, to say the least. Besides the absolutely unique experience of being disowned--which, incidentally, I cannot recommend--it was on that day that I formed several of the axiomata which have shaped my life since. You may of course trace to it my tendency to dislike and distrust females, and my scorn for what I have called the softer emotions. It explains how you never chanced to meet my eldest brother, Sherrinford, who did not speak to me again from then until his death last year, and my comparative closeness to Mycroft, who, being considerably cleverer than Father, deduced the true story and stood by me. Oddly enough, my inability to detect the danger which was coming upon me prompted me to the systematic refinement of my naturally acute powers of observation, so in a sense the incident was also the root of my future profession. With so many other important happenings to mention in connection with that April afternoon, it seems almost parenthetical to add that it was then that I first realized my attraction to men."

"Given such an inauspicious beginning, however, it will hardly surprise you to hear that I never pursued the matter any further. I had concluded that desire was to be scorned, that love must be conditional, and that to trust another person was foolishness of the worst kind. I did not think that anything would ever drive me to seek a lover. Tonight has proven me wrong. You have proven me wrong, John."

"I trust you. I want you. And I love you--unconditionally. Not once have I had cause to doubt any of those feelings, nor do I believe I ever shall." For most of my long speech I had stared, unseeing, at the curtains. Now I turned to look at him. He was frightfully misty about the eyes. That would never do. I hastened to break the mood. "However, you _should_ know that if you treat me like some blushing maiden because you will be my first, I shall never speak to you again. I may be a virgin, but I am not made of porcelain. Nor am I uninformed; I suspect you will find my knowledge of anatomy rather more 'systematic' than you had supposed. In fact, there are one or two little experiments in human tactile response which I have been meaning to try…"

Slipping a hand beneath the hem of his shirt, I traced the line of his vertebrae up towards his shoulders, stroking his spine with a light but assured touch. He closed his eyes and turned his head slightly, which allowed me to lean close and blow a light stream of breath across his neck and ear. He shivered, smiled, and turned back to me. To say that he looked more composed would be to underrate the effects of my little demonstration, but his derangement was now weighted decidedly further towards the physical.

"Perhaps this is just a personal study, but if you do decide to publish on the subject you will keep my name out of it, I hope. Although I am, as always, proud to act as your assistant, it would certainly not be wise to advertise my rôle in these particular researches," he quipped. Then he sobered once more and looked me in the eye.

"I am not sure that I know how to respond to your story, other than to thank you for telling it to me. If I try more in words, I am sure to fall into that sympathy from which you have requested that I forbear. But perhaps this will suffice."

He drew me close and kissed me, long and slow and deep. There was a quiet profundity about that kiss that communicated his feelings in no uncertain terms. We spent a peaceful æon thus, and yet, when the kiss finally ended, there was no sense of loss.

"Holmes…" he whispered, murmuring the name as he rested his forehead against mine.

It took me a moment to emerge from the haze of his kiss before I leaned back and frowned. "No, that really won't do."

Confusion clouded his brow. "What won't do? I believe that 'Holmes' cannot be construed as an expression of sympathy."

"Of course not. What I meant was that it won't do, you still calling me by my last name at such a moment as this."

"Oh, that," he said, coloring slightly. Those open features assumed the peculiar guilty look which makes him seem a decade younger.

He displayed no inclination to elaborate, so I felt that it was necessary to prod him just a bit. "You seem to enjoy it when I call you 'John,'" I pointed out, trying not to sound petulant. I admit the possibility that I may have pouted just a bit.

"I do, very much!" He hastened to assure me. "It's just… well, you see… My dear fellow, what it comes down to is this: 'Sherlock' is simply the most unromantic name that I have ever encountered in connection with a real human being. That being said, I love you, more than anything, and if it means so much to you…"

He was cut off at this point by the positive storm of laughter which escaped me. As he stopped, uncertainly, I grew conversely daring and flung my left leg over his right, straddling him and kissing him with purpose.

"My dearest John," I gasped, laughing again. "You are always surprising me." I settled back on my haunches, still above him, and grinned. "It's a good old Anglo-Saxon name--actually, it means 'the shining one,' which is an image not entirely devoid of poetry--but I do take your point. Fortunately for you, 'Sherlock' is not my only given name. In fact, it is not even first among them."

He quirked an eyebrow at me. "If I had known that a declaration of undying affection was all that was necessary to uncover your many secrets, I should have made one years ago," he remarked sardonically. I would have replied in kind, but at that moment his hands came up to rest on the outer edges of my thighs and he seized upon my momentary distraction to continue, "And what, pray, are these other names? Dare I hope that the nominal geniuses who bestowed 'Sherrinford', 'Mycroft' and 'Sherlock' upon three innocent infants might have had compassion enough to soften the blow?"

"Really, Watson, one would think that this evening's events would have proven beyond doubt that I do, in fact, have feelings. You needn't be so _very_ offensive about it," I supplied, with a feigned sniff. "You make me almost disinclined to tell you at all."

I expected him to turn supplicant. Instead, an impish look crossed his features and his hands began to stroke slowly up and down my thighs, applying just the right amount of pressure. "Oh, it's all the same to me, Holmes," he said nonchalantly. "It will be your loss, you know. On the right tongue, a lover's name can be quite the verbal caress--and, I assure you, _my_ tongue is _more_ than skilled enough for the purpose." His eyes were positively wicked, and mine far wider than I would have liked. "But if you would rather not tell me…"

I opened my mouth once, closed it again, and swallowed. "My full name is William Sherlock Scott Holmes. I went by William in my youth, but chose to use 'Sherlock' in my professional life, as 'William Holmes' is not a likely name to strike fear into the hearts of the criminals of London."

He was looking at me very intently. "William," he said, softly, savoring the word, his voice smooth and rich and deep. He smiled at me, a real smile behind lust-dark eyes. "Did anyone ever call you 'Will'?"

"Will?" I stared. "No, I don't believe so."

"Good," he said, firmly, his hands beginning to move once more upon my legs, growing bolder by the second. "I like the idea of having a name for you that is only mine. And it fits you so well, too--sometimes I think that you could stop the world turning, if you willed it."

I chuckled. "You give me far too much credit, as always." I cocked my head, considering. "Will. Hmm. Well, if you like it, I've no objection."

"Will it is, then," he said. "Shall we try that little scene again?" Without waiting for an answer, bought his mouth to mine and kissed me in the same slow, lingering way as before. "Will…" he sighed against my lips as we parted.

"Yes," I whispered, my mouth still very close to his, "A distinct improvement…"

He pulled me down again, this time in a more energetic fashion. As our lips and tongues dueled pleasantly, our hands played over each other's bodies, seeking new areas to explore, fumbling with the occasional button. His lips moved away to map the line of my jaw, traveling upwards. He traced the edge of my ear with his tongue, very slowly, then began to nibble at my earlobe. When his tongue darted suddenly into my ear I gasped and arched my back, drinking in the pleasure of the sensation. My knees slid apart across the settee, bringing my hips flush with his. The feel of his half-hard prick against mine, even through the fabric of our trousers, was delectably erotic. He moaned into my ear, and I shuddered against him.

Reluctantly, I slid from the sofa to kneel before him. "Holmes?" he asked, in an unusually hesitant tone. "What are you…"

He trailed off as I reached down to his feet. "Merely removing your boots," I said, smirking as I realized what he must be thinking of. "Why?" I added, contorting my features into a look of the purest innocence. I nuzzled the interior of his thigh just above the knee, my hands still busy with his bootlaces. "What else would I be doing here," I moved my head a bit higher, "on my knees," then shifted my attentions to the opposite leg, "in front of you?"

I had only just time to pull off his stockings before he was on his feet and tugging me up with him. "That's quite enough of that smug attitude from you, Sherlock Holmes," he teased gruffly.

His hands were rough, and his kiss searing. Abruptly, he spun me about, pressing my back against his chest, and slid his hands over mine. Spreading my arms wide, he guided them to rest on the mantelpiece, coming perilously near to upsetting a box of revolver cartridges, a few crumpled telegrams, and a half-drunk snifter of brandy. "Don't move," he growled. "I intend to get this shirt off of you, and I'll thank you not to interfere."

My knees went rather rubbery. I am a contrary creature by nature, but I had no inclination whatever to disobey him--in fact, I would have complied with any number of far more distasteful commands if given in _that_ voice. While my hands remained planted on the mantel, he moved his to my shirtfront and attacked my remaining buttons with a vengeance. Without pausing in his task, he began to lick and suck and nip at the back of my neck, sending goose-bumps all up and down my limbs and wringing a series of inarticulate cries from my throat. He finished my buttons in record time, but only once he had reduced me to positive trembling against him did he reach back up to my hands and free them from their resting place. In one fluid motion he pulled my shirt over my head and tossed it somewhere in the direction of his writing desk (where, I later learned, it sustained a series of ink-stains which no amount of skillful laundering could ever remove). He pressed a last lingering kiss just below my hairline, and then turned me back around to face him.

He paused and stepped back to take in the sight of me. My eyes raked over him in their turn. He was all swollen lips and darkened eyes--flushed-faced, tousle-haired, barefooted--with his waistcoat open, half his shirt-buttons undone and his trousers bulging in the most obscene fashion. His explicit disarray was more alluring by a thousandfold than any contextless state of nudity, no matter how complete, could possibly be. This untamed, exotic, sybaritic creature was a world away from the stolid, dependable John Watson I knew, and yet he was Watson, and he was _mine_. That glorious thought drove me quite as near madness as I ever hope to be.

I am not precisely sure of when his shirt came off, or how we ended up horizontal, but I must have launched myself at him, for my next memory is of the feeling of his bare chest against mine as I slid down on top of him. Immediately my legs intertwined with his and I rolled us sideways. My hands investigated the knobs and planes and edges of his back as his explored my chest, and then his fingers found the strange, hard crease where my leg meets my hip and I sucked in my breath in a hiss.

"Dear God, John!" He repeated the caress and my hips bucked, grinding me against him.

"Are you aware," he said, as he resolutely kissed his way down my torso, "of how long I have wanted you? Of the explicit, exquisite, excruciating detail with which I have imagined this? Do you know how many sweet indignities I have longed to perpetrate on your person, and how urgent that longing has been?" He lavished the smooth planes of my stomach with attention, and then tugged the waist of my trousers aside to nibble at my jutting hipbones The contrast of his rough moustache with the silky feeling of his mouth was marvelous, and I squirmed against his lips, shamelessly encouraging him. He smiled, teasingly, and pulled away, sliding back up my body. As soon as his lips were within my reach I kissed him mercilessly.

"Tell me," I requested, interpolating the words between his mouth and mine. "Tell me all of it." I had observed, though hazily, that points of juncture seemed to be the areas where he focused his efforts, and also the spots which garnered the most emphatic effects. Accordingly, I dipped my head and applied the tip of my tongue to the place where his neck and collarbone connected. The initial results were _most_ gratifying. Triumphant, I redoubled my attack.

"It all started with your hands," he said, weaving one of his into my hair and stroking my neck absently. "You have--ah!--you have the most _sensual_ hands, those long, white fingers, always moving, effortlessly precise. Watching you hold a pipette, or play the violin, or smoke a cigarette, is… one can't help but imagine other uses for those hands."

My lips had wandered as he spoke. At this point, I had just sucked one of his nipples between my teeth, which provoked a sharp indrawn breath and a lapse in the conversation. It was some moments before he had recovered his composure sufficiently to continue.

"In the early days of our acquaintance I tried to suppress the fantasies, but that only forced them to surface at the most inconvenient moments. I very distinctly remember my embarrassment one morning at breakfast--the third of March, '81, in deference to your love of the exact--and how desperate I was to hide my arousal as the image of your fingers stroking me under the table sprang upon me unbidden and refused for some minutes to leave my mind. Manifold though your charms are, that initial physical attraction would no doubt eventually have passed …" He gave a little half-laugh as my tongue poked inquisitively at his navel. I scowled at the offending body part. That had not been the reaction I had intended to provoke.

"...have passed, had we remained no more than a pair of fellow-lodgers. But soon enough, of course, I had the opportunity to see you in your element, at work on your cases, and that proved an intoxicant of an entirely new kind. Besides the natural attraction that comes of admiration--and how could I help but admire the powers that have made you so justly famed?--I saw during that first investigation, and the many that have followed it, the change that comes over you when you have caught a scent." As he spoke I had explored his fingertips, his elbow, the smooth lines of his pectoral muscles, the web of scar tissue crisscrossing his shoulder. When he stopped to enjoy the memory of those early days together, I prolonged the interruption with a kiss. Strange, I mused, that after nearly eight years of not kissing him, a five-minute interval should seem too long to go without.

After I pulled my mouth away to trail a string of love-bites along his neck and shoulders, he went on, "I wish you could see yourself as you are then, Will. The Holmes of the consulting room is a being of marble, coldly beautiful, but in the field you are all fire, tantalizing and dangerous and alive. The utter, single-minded fervor with which you gather up the threads of a case is more than mesmerizing; it is the most invariably arousing spectacle I have ever witnessed. That _intensity_ that comes over you… I want at once to control it, and to be subject to it." His hands were moving across me again. He slipped one finger just half-an-inch below my waistband and followed its line around my hips. No words in any book could possibly have prepared me for the sharp, hot rush of lust that accompanied the gesture.

"Ever since that first case I have longed to release that passion which seethes beneath your calm public front. I want to unwrap and unravel and undo you--but not in the destructive sense that those words imply. How can I say it better? I want to distill you, or to polish you down like a precious stone. I want to reach your quintessence, and to know that, in doing so, I have accomplished what no one else can. To put it plainly, my dearest William, it has been my most ardent wish, for a very long time, to bring you to a state of the most comprehensive, categorical, all-encompassing ecstasy that any man has ever experienced, and tonight, I fully intend to do exactly that." And with one fluid movement, his hand slipped into my trousers and his lissome fingers wrapped themselves neatly around my aching prick.

I truly meant to reply to him. 'John Watson,' I would have liked to say, 'As appealing as that plan is, you should be aware that I shall not allow you to make an idol of me. I am very willing to be your partner in bliss, but not simply to lie back and ignore your pleasure, for I am far, far too eager to witness the look on your face when you meet your _petit mort_ to forego that indulgence any longer than is necessary. Now take off your trousers like a good fellow, or I shall do it for you.'

What I actually said was, "Ah! Oh, oh _John_, that feels _so_…nhhn!"

He smiled, loving and predatory at once. He leaned his head down to nuzzle into my neck, following the affectionate gesture with a sharp little bite. The latter was distraction enough to stop me protesting when his hand released me with a caress and busied itself instead with removing the last of my clothing. Within a few moments I was lying nude on the hearthrug, surrounded on all sides by discarded garments.

Watson knelt above my prone form, his legs on either side of my calves, not-touching me intensely. The lull would have been a chance for me to collect myself, were he not making love to me with his eyes quite as effectively as he had been with his body. I have often had occasion to remark upon the extraordinary expressiveness of those emerald eyes of his, a trait which stood him in good stead at that moment.

I maintain a strict standard when it comes to self-assessment, physical and otherwise, permitting neither false modesty nor pride to erode my judgement. I am not a gargoyle; neither am I an Adonis. My facial features are, overall, quite good, but their effect is marred by hollow cheeks and a nose of which the less is said, the better. My unusual height is an advantage to me in action, accentuating my habitual efficiency of motion; however, taken in combination with the slimness of my figure, those extra inches make a gangling creature of me when I am at rest. The extraordinary pallor of my complexion is considered admirable by some standards, but I for one prefer a bit more color. As to that portion of my anatomy which peculiarly pertains to the activities in which we were engaged, it is much like the rest of me--long and lean. As aware as I am of all those facts about myself, I could keep none of them in my mind as I saw and felt his gaze work its way over my flesh. He looked at me as though he had uncovered a lost Michelangelo, and yet with such honest eyes that it was impossible to believe the compliment insincere. It was the memory of that look that sustained me through his wedding day. No man who has been looked upon in such a fashion can doubt that he is adored.

I hardly need mention that I find his form quite as appealing as he found mine and, in those few moments when I could spare the attention, I indulged in a similar study to his own. There are many excellent reasons for Watson's inevitable success in his romantic ventures. Of these, the physical are certainly not the least. His eyes are brilliant and long-lashed and his mouth full and sensual, but neither betrays so much as a hint of femininity. His skin, even since the regrettable loss of his Eastern tan, is warmly golden-pink, an entirely healthy shade that complements the russet of his hair. I suspect that I could rhapsodize quite as fluently on the subject of his moustache as he on that of my hands, but it will suffice here to say that the very same arrangement of facial hair that makes most of its wearers look frankly ridiculous is, on my Watson, a more irresistibly charming feature than I can accurately express. His arms and trunk are muscular but not to the point of vulgarity, and ornamented rather than marred by that most solid proof of his courage which puckers the skin of his shoulder. For the rest of him, though he was still exasperatingly covered, there were one or two details to be deduced. It was no great leap of logic to conclude, from the feel of him pressed against me earlier and the eye-level view afforded me by his current position, that Watson is a man whom nature has blessed to an unusual degree. And as to his other side… well. It would be a blind man indeed who could share rooms with John Watson for more than a few minutes and fail to remark, even with the encumbrance of trousers, that he is positively the most callipygian personage in London.

"John," I said at last, striving for a level tone, "While I am sure I have never enjoyed being looked at quite so much before, I think our time could be better spent at present."

I had expected a smile, but his eyes were serious. "I wanted to memorize you," he said, softly, "just as you are now."

I sat up, my face coming level with his chest. "That is all very well," I replied, running my hands over the well-muscled expanse before me until I reached his flies, "but you might have offered me the opportunity to do the same. Your habit of remaining more clothed than I is really not sporting, you know."

This time he did smile, and stood briefly to allow the trousers and drawers which I had unfastened to fall away from his body. For a few moments I simply enjoyed the view. Then my fingers reached out, quite of their own accord, to ghost along the length of his prick. He leaned back his head and drew in a deep breath, and then before I could register the movement he was atop me, his body pressing mine into the carpet. He spared one hand to pull my mouth to his in a violent kiss (which I am afraid it took me some seconds to adequately return), but the other rushed to my groin to grasp and stroke and fondle. His touch, while eager, was also skillful and efficient, and left me reeling with pleasure. My own attempts at reciprocation were far less elegant, but from his gasps for breath, and the way his hips strained into my hand, I think I am justified in assuming that he found my ministrations enjoyable.

The detached and logical part of my brain has spent the intervening months attempting to convince me to view whole proceeding--two English gentlemen, lying naked on the sitting room floor, rutting gracelessly into each other's hands--as a ridiculous bit of tragicomedy. Then and since, however, I have been far too preoccupied by the beautiful, agonizing urgency of it, which his every motion served only to compound, to accept that cynical valuation. We touched in so many places, and yet none of it was enough. I was hungry for more--more of not knowing whose limbs were whose, more of the maddening friction of his fingers on my cock, more of his insistent tongue between my lips…

"No, wait," he said suddenly, pulling away slightly. "We shouldn't do this here; we ought to go to one of our beds."

"They are both of them too small, and too far away," I pointed out. "I will not permit you to cease touching me, nor consent to refrain from touching you, for the unreasonable length of time it would take to reach a bedroom."

How the man could look so guilty and yet so wholly aroused all at once is beyond me. "But this… but you…"

I do not claim always to know what he is thinking, but I did then. "_Not_ porcelain," I reminded him, moving my hand downwards to roll his testes in my palm. He rewarded the motion with a groan. I attempted to smile, but ended up moaning myself as his thumb began to trace perfect circles over the head of my prick while his hand continued its steady pendular slide. My voice stumbled drunkenly as I continued, "Besides, doctor, while I would normally encourage your sense of chivalry as quite an attractive quality, I am not sure that there exists a polite protocol for such a case. Is there really a gentlemanly methodology to be followed when deflowering one's male fellow-lodger?"

He managed to capture enough breath for the better part of a laugh. "No, I suppose not," he admitted.

"Then say to blazes with propriety, and return your attention--and your mouth--to where it belongs."

He rolled me onto my back and grinned down at me. "Ah, but there are so _many_ places where my mouth could be of use," he pointed out. "While kissing you is certainly an appealing option, I could do this," as he sucked my finger between his lips with the relish of a _connoisseur_, "or this," darting down to slide his tongue between two of my toes. I cried out. How could he _possibly_ have caused such an incredible rush of sensation without touching any part of me but my feet? "Or, of course," he said, his hands caressing my legs as he moved up my body, "I could always…" Dipping his head, he took the very tip of my prick into his mouth.

My eyes slid shut--not from shame, or because I did not wish to watch him, but to savor and intensify the bliss of that experience. It felt as though all the warmth, all the softness, all the goodness and sweetness and beauty that had ever been were concentrated between his lips, and yet the sensation was in every corner of my body. He set a slow, steady rhythm, taking me a fraction of an inch deeper with each bob of his head. I burned and drowned at once. I began to babble irrepressibly, crumbs of endearments, slivers of his name, and encomiastic fragments in English and Italian and French. At one point I fear I slipped into Latin (the exact phrase, I believe, was _quis me uno vivit felicior_?*), and he smiled around my prick at the incongruity of the long-dead language in that particular setting.

It would be absurd to call my emotion at that moment annoyance, but there is a certain pride-ruffling effect to being laughed at by a man in the process of sucking one's cock. Half-mad with pleasure or no, I was still Sherlock Holmes, and my powers of observation had not failed me. I thought I had grasped the general technique. Let him see how coherent _he_ was in like case. His yelp of surprise and subsequent groan of pleasure as I abruptly reversed our positions were immensely satisfying.

It was a far more cerebral activity than I should ever have imagined. Besides the obvious hurdles of the teeth and the epiglottis, there was the question of what to do with the tongue, and the lips, and the nose. There were the issues of how best to breathe, how far suction was a useful tool, and what sort of rhythm to set. And this was all without the additional complications of what to do with my hands, and whether I ought perhaps to detour temporarily to any one of the other sensitive areas in that general region of his physique, and of my own arousal still buzzing in the back of my brain.

For all that, I found the experience an overwhelmingly enjoyable one--perhaps more so, as the logistical nuances decreased the (already slim) chance of boredom. Predictably, Watson is as responsive a lover as one could hope to meet with. He was vocal in an agreeable sort of way, quick to praise or plead or give direction, but his outcries were interspersed with periods of hushed appreciation which kept the litany from becoming tedious. At first he held himself back, no doubt trying to keep still while I taught myself how to go about it. As I went on, however, and his tension increased, he began to shake and squirm beneath me, and slid a hand into my hair with a sigh that showed how much he had been longing for the contact.

I increased my pace a little at a time, and listened with pleasure as his breath grew ever more irregular and his exclamations more frantic. After one particularly vehement jerk of his hips, accompanied by a cry of "Sweet God in heaven, Will!" he tugged me up to face him and proceeded to thoroughly ravish the mouth which a moment before had been so busily employed upon his person. Reaching a hand between us, he wrapped it around our two pricks and stroked us both. The combined sensations of his member against mine, still damp from my attentions, and of his rough-but-kind fingers, were enough to drive me perilously near the brink.

"John," I moaned, "I want…I want…I want…"

"What do you want, Will?" His voice was clear, but none too steady.

"_Je veux--seulement ceci_. I am made of want. I am sick with want. _Il n'y a rien sur cette terre que mon désir, et mon seul désir, c'est toi_."**

It was an absurd, ungrammatical little speech, but he understood every syllable and kissed me deeply in proof of it.

"Shall I tell you what _I_ want?" He asked softly, excitement blended into his ragged tone.

"Tell me." It's as well that all I needed to do was repeat his word. Between the feeling of his prick pressed against mine, and the pressure of his hand as he pleasured the two of us at once, I was quickly approaching incoherency.

"I want…" He shuddered against me, and seemed not able to draw a full breath. "God, I'm so near! I… I want…" He hesitated, as though searching for the proper phrase, and then gave up and gasped, "Please, William, my sweet Will, I want to be inside you when I come."

What exact response he expected from me I am not certain, but it was most assuredly not the one I gave. Rolling away from him onto my back, I slid my knees upwards and spread my legs wide. I pulled his right hand to my mouth and sucked on his index finger for a moment, then guided it down to rest against my nether opening. "Then hurry up and fuck me, John, for I cannot wait much longer."

It was a tenet of my existence that I enjoy surprising Watson long before I had any inkling of why. I had managed it many times in the past, often going to some lengths--a foolish incident involving the fireplace poker springs to mind--to produce that look of startled admiration. Those other times were nothing compared to this.

"If you were hoping for timidity, you have mistaken your man, John. And even if I were constitutionally inclined towards fearfulness or shame, I trust you. I know that you would not ask it if you thought you might hurt me, or if there were no prospect for my pleasure in the experience. In the fullness of time I plan, rest assured, to explore with you every single method of intimacy in which we are capable of engaging, and to enjoy every one. If this is what you desire I am far more than happy to oblige you, with the sole caveat that you immediately cease hesitating and act!"

"I think that is a condition I can accept." He still bore a rather stunned expression, but his finger began to stroke my hole, teasing the sensitive muscle. His other hand reached out behind him, groping blindly through the piles of wrinkled fabric that littered the floor. Lighting finally upon his own jacket, he pulled a small paper packet out of the pocket. It seemed I was not the only one of us who had made a preparatory visit on my way home.

It is a mark of how far I was beside myself with lust that I did not bother to deduce at which chemist he had bought the little bottle, or even what precisely it contained. It was smooth and thick and viscous, and it served its purpose. Though I would have been perfectly content with my own improvised method of lubrication, for his finger at least, he carefully coated the digit before returning it to press up against my entrance. "Take a breath, push back against me, and breathe out as you do," he instructed, his eager eyes at war with the rather professorial tone of the remark.

I endeavoured to comply. I admit that the sensation of his fingertip slipping inside me was somewhat uncomfortable at first, but he was incredibly patient, moving deeper only while I exhaled, and soon enough I felt my muscles relax. The same pattern of initial tightness soothed away by time and the gentleness of his touch was reiterated when he added a second finger, and then, as he slid his hand slowly back and forth, encouraging me to take him in as deeply as possible, his fingertips brushed against that most carefully hidden of pleasure points.

A kaleidoscopic wave of lust swept over me, and what little control I still had over myself was gone. He repeated the caress, and repeated it again, and each time the sensation became more intense. All thought of discomfort--all _thought_\--had passed. I pushed back wantonly against his fingers and chanted an urgent chorus, nothing but "please" and "John" and the occasional "now" in a voice so uneven that it was almost a sob.

Something broke behind his eyes, and I knew that the Rubicon had been crossed; had half of Scotland Yard had burst through our door at that moment, it should not have deterred us from what we were about to do. He kissed me one last time as he pulled his fingers from me, and then pushed himself into me in one smooth stroke.

Our mingled moans chased each other about the room and my eyes stuttered shut as I wrapped my legs around his waist. One of his hands grasped my hip, so firmly that I could feel my skin empurple beneath his fingers, and the other, still oil-slick, encircled my prick. He did not attempt subtlety in his pace; it was just as well, for, had he tried, I would surely have done everything within my power to hurry him. He pumped his hand and hips in time, a simple, percussive rhythm that drove him deep within me and brushed his tip against my prostate with every stroke. It was hard and fast and visceral and unceremonious and irresistible and _right_, and it could not possibly last for long.

I was utterly lost. The world had no gravity. I scrabbled for purchase but could find nothing to hold. I tossed and writhed and felt myself unbinding, skin from muscle from bone, for I had not force enough left in me even to keep my body in one piece.

"Look at me," he commanded, in a hoarse voice, grasping the back of my neck with the hand not occupied with my cock and forcing my head to face his. I have no idea how I obeyed, as I am sure that the part of my brain which understood English, and even that which recognized the existence of my eyes, had long since ceased to function. I suppose I managed it because the only idea I had left was 'Watson,' and it was what he wanted of me. My eyelids wrenched themselves apart.

I could stand no more sensation. The sight of his eyes, hopelessly dilated pupils surrounded by a thin ring of the most impossible green, was one impression too many. I clenched every muscle in my body, choked on a voiceless scream, and climaxed, spilling myself between our joined flesh.

It took only a few more thrusts before he joined me, crying out my name as his release swept over him. Now that I have had months to sort out and untangle the memories I can appreciate the perfect beauty of his face at that moment, but at the time I was only dimly aware of it. I was only dimly aware of anything.

The moment he withdrew from me I found myself on my side, curled quite involuntarily into a loose spiral, wracked with a series of shudders interspersed here and there with the larger convulsions that marked my aftershocks. I saw hardly anything, heard almost nothing, and felt far, far too much. Watson's face appeared, dimly, before me. My own name sounded tentatively in my ears, and his hand touched my arm. I shook it off. Even in that state I could not fail to see the panic-edged hurt writ large across his features, and I struggled to find the words to reassure him. I knew I could not force my muscles to obey me for long, so I chose the shortest possible sentence that was sure to serve my purpose.

"I love you."

Despite the faraway, clipped voice, which I could scarcely believe was mine, those few words were enough to allay his fear. He lay down parallel to me, not touching but with his face only eight or ten inches from my own, and waited.

Watson has a grand gift of silence. I have never valued it more than I did then. It took long seconds for the tremors to lessen. I considered how best to express what had just occurred, and, when I had begun to feel that I was regaining control over my own body, I said, "I believe you just brought me to the far limit of my comprehension, John." With a supreme effort, which I considered well worthwhile if it would prevent him taking my statement as an accusation, I reached out my hand and grasped his. He held it gently and did not attempt further contact, and my already profound gratitude ticked up another notch.

"Is that what happened, then?" He asked softly, and with a little smile. He traced his fingers very lightly over my knuckles.

I was not sure how to express it, exactly. "You know that my senses are abnormally acute." The shaking had by now ebbed away, leaving only the occasional faint tremor. "On this occasion, they provided me with more raw data than I could comprehend at once. It was overwhelming, to say the least." After one more deep breath, I managed to close the gap between us and wrap my limbs about him. He held me close, his embrace deep and undemanding. "I most sincerely beg your pardon for pushing you away, but I was so buried in sensations, and so lost in trying to sort them all out, that any fresh contact was… not painful, exactly, but unbearable, in its way. I know that you must have thought…"

"I am not sure what I thought," he admitted. "I could not decide whether to be afraid that I had hurt you, or to fear that you had suddenly become disgusted with the whole business."

"No, it was certainly neither of those. In fact, the experience was more profoundly enjoyable than I can accurately express, in spite of the extraordinary aftereffects." By now I was quite myself again. I turned my face to his and kissed him lingeringly. "I do not anticipate that that state of… mental overload will be a habitual reaction. No previous orgasm has ever induced such a state in me." I shot him a flirtatious grin. "Clearly your amatory prowess will require some getting used to. I am very much looking forward to the process. You are an adornment to the art of romance, my darling John."

With feigned seriousness behind twinkling eyes, he said, "I had ceased to worry, but now I know something must be wrong--you just apologized and complimented me in the same breath. It is very awkward to realize only now that the man to whom I've just made love must not be Sherlock Holmes after all."

I laughed. "If I am not Sherlock Holmes, then you had best not be John Watson, for if the good doctor has been spending his nights locked in the passionate embrace of some _other_ lanky, raven-haired consulting detective, Mr. Holmes will no doubt be very put out. And he's a dangerous man to cross, you know." I arched my back and stretched, then settled back against him.

"Mmm, positively fearsome," he agreed. "Not the sort of fellow, for example, to be distracted by protestations that no man since creation has ever been 'so truly turned over and over as my poor self, in love' with him." I grinned, and he kissed me once, twice, again and again, smiling all the while.

"'Thou and I are too wise to woo peaceably,'"*** I sighed, in the space between his kisses.

"Perhaps," he said, breaking off his affectionate assault, "but I, for one, am wise enough to insist, in spite of your objections, that we relocate our wooing to one of the bedrooms, in short order. I would not change a single thing about the last hour, you understand, but I should prefer that the rest of the night be spent lying somewhere other than atop your shirt, my cuffs and yesterday's copy of the Daily Telegraph." He pulled me with him as he stood. I glanced down to discover that his inventory had been entirely accurate.

"How did you know that they were your cuffs--or yesterday's Telegraph?" I asked, before I could stop myself.

He shot me a look of kindly condescension as we strolled, arms about each other's waists, in the direction of his bedroom. "My dear Holmes, I had eleven separate reasons, but they would only be of interest to an expert."

The laughter that overtook us both was wholehearted and honest and pure, and only silenced when we stepped over his threshold and shut the door.

 

 

 

 

* "What man living is happier than I?" Catullus (naturally), 107

** "I want--only that...There is nothing on earth but my desire, and my only desire is you."

*** This quote and the preceding are from Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing, V.ii


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